Fishing Vessels...... Grrrrrr!

Published on 19th February 2012 07:54 AM

7 Comments

The last couple of nights have been made fun by tiny little fishing vessels: in short, I hate them. They do not show up on radar easily, nor do they show the lights I have been taught to recognise. I had been told that the flashing lights (LED strobe types) were just fishing buoys and not to worry too much about them. However, last night I had what I thought was a fishing buoy coming down my stbd side, as it began to pass, it suddenly turned on it's main light, we put the search light on it, and there was a tiny little boat, only a few meters long (if that), about 100m from me. The gits. Thankfully, this was just as I had handed over the watch to the 2/O, so he had the fun of playing dodgems with the other lights that were coming up! Still, it scared the cr@p out of me, and from now on I will be treating every flashing light as a boat!

This evening, more fishing vessels, we left Porta Caldera at 2000hrs and there were a bunch of them hanging about, thankfully the Captain was still on the bridge and gently coached me on how to dodge between them, rather than make a massive deviation around them all. Later though, after he'd gone to bed I had 4 more, all of whom appeared to be charging toward my planned course, so I ended up going 4 miles to stbd off track, away from the land, to skirt them.Once they were clear, I made a course toward the next waypoint, but then there were more, but on my port side, so I headed back to track, which took me clear again. Of course, another one popped up (on Radar first this time) right on my head... By the time I had cleared the closer ones I would be able to alter again to onto more or less our planned course and avoid the next lot, but it was handover time too, so I left it in the very capable hands of the 2/O. He'll probably let them come closer than I would, but at the moment, I'd much rather give them all a very wide berth, especially as they keep altering their course and speed, it's like avoiding a swarm of flies!!

In other news, life has mostly been taken up by paperwork, training and inspections. Despite the glamourous picture I may paint by posting photos like the one in my last blog entry, that is actually not the norm. I've been off the vessel once, twice if you count the half hour I got at San Blas with the Security Supervisor on my first morning. I decided not to do my lifeboat inventory in the heat of the midday sun (so far, the thermometer has registered as high as 44 degrees Celsius in full sunlight... I don't want heatstroke!) So when I have outside jobs I've decided to chill after watch until 3 or 4 in the afternoon and then do a couple of hours work before watch at 8pm. Most of my free time is spent sleeping or just chilling (literally) in my cabin, it has TV and wifi access and is deliciously air-conditioned, after being outside it feels like walking into a fridge!

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7 Comments

Steve - 19th February 2012

4 at a time? That's nothing. Imagine hundreds of them all around you at night off the Indian coast, passing at a generous 500-1000yds while you steam at 18kts (Captain's idea of "safe speed"). That was not fun.

But fishermen are the same all over the world, none of them comply with ColRegs. It's just nice that some of them choose to display something vaguely approaching the mandated lights.
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size4riggerboots - 19th February 2012

Yeah, I'm sure it'll get easier with time, but it's still all a bit new and scary at the mo!!
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Steve - 19th February 2012

Yeah, sorry, didn't mean to appear to belittle your experience. I was lucky as a cadet and got to spend a lot of time dodging fishing vessels (and all sorts of others) around the UK coast so it was easy to hit the ground running as a new OOW. ISTR you said your captain specifies a 2' CPA? That won't help, every bit added to the 'magic mile' is so much more difficult to achieve.

The easiest set of standing orders to achieve that I came across was one that didn't specify a CPA. Uncertain at first, because you didn't know what the captain actually wanted (does no set CPA mean 1', 2', or less than 1'?). Turned out he was quite reasonable about getting closer than a mile to fishing boats and small craft (4 cables was about the minimum) and it just makes sense to give real ships as near a mile as practicable, more if prudent.
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marcus1608 - 25th March 2012

Fishing in the north sea off the Danish and Norwegian coasts while we have right of way and are severely restricted in ability to manoeuvre, towing at just 4 kts and showing all correct lights and shapes, you would be surprised at the reluctancy of many merchant ships to alter for or acknowledge us!! Still seems to be an attitude of "I'm bigger than you get out of my way!!" with some! Not all of course but it's not just fishermen to blame.
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Steve - 25th March 2012

Originally Posted by marcus1608

you would be surprised at the reluctancy of many merchant ships to alter for or acknowledge us!!

Might be a matter of perception. A large, fast container ship for example will often alter later than you might like, and pass closer than you might like, but that is their normal behaviour. Can you be a bit more specific on what they do or do not do that you perceive as a failure to comply with IRPCS?
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marcus1608 - 26th March 2012

Yes it is usually simply a case of the vessel altering later and or passing closer han I would feel comfortable with. Not any breach of of IRCPS but can make for a sweaty brow and jitters in the wheelhouse when there's a container ship 10 times the size of you stemming you up doing 20 knots when you know there's no avoiding action you could take if necessary!
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marcus1608 - 26th March 2012

By the way I would like to add great site, hope one of my first posts on it isn't miscontrued as inflammatory or rude, I was just making the point that fishing vessels and merchant ships all over the world blame each other for ignoring colregs etc but it's often a case of pot, kettle, black!
Anyway hopefully before too long will be on the other side of the fence, all being well should be starting deck cadetship with Maersk in September...
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