T&T: Fishermen, wakes and other such things.

[Albin43SDtr]

'Lo All,

>In over half a century of bluewater boating, I have never been able to make
>radio contact with a sailboat. For some unfathomable reason, sailboaters do
>not monitor their radios. Every week-end I hear the Navy trying to make
>contact with a sailboat to no avail. I guess it's a "sailboat" thing to be
>oblivious to ones surroundings.

When on my old sailboat, I always monitored the VHF and responded to 
all calls. When busy changing the setting of the sails, the response 
may have been delayed. When I first bought the boat, I did not have a 
handheld radio, so I had to go to the hatchway to respond. Later, the 
handheld allowed me to respond from the helm, so the response was 
more timely. On the infrequent occasion that I passed another 
sailboat, I called them. About 50% responded. Fewer power boats 
responded to my calls from the sailboat. The most notable was what 
looked like a brand new 65+-' Hatteras that was westbound from the 
Tyndall/Dupont bridge. The first daymarker on the west side of the 
bridge has opposite buoyage markings, as the primary markings are 
then "Red Right Returning" from the Panama City Pass. (East of the 
bridge, the red markers are on the north side of the channel, but on 
the west side they are reversed, so the red markers are on the south 
side.) Anyway, I was headed home and was about a eighth of a mile 
from the Hatteras when I noticed that he was headed (at normal cruise 
speed (?) - fast, huge wake) for the green daymarker, to pass it on 
the north side (putting it on his port side), which has about 0-5' of 
water, depending upon the tides and distance from the marker. I tried 
unsuccessfully to call him, even said that the buoyage system had 
changed when he went past the Dupont bridge, and that if he 
proceeded, he would be aground shortly. No response. All at once, the 
water erupted from under the boat as he threw the engines into 
reverse. The boat quickly stopped, sat there for about a moment, then 
rotated to port and proceeded west, at a little above idle speed. I 
don't know if he actually touched bottom or not, but he was close, very close.

About 50% response is all I ever get from recreational power boats, 
too, when calling from the Celestial. The most notable experience 
being in the ICW on the West Coast of Florida. While the bays are 
expansive, they are often extremely shallow, except in the narrow 
dredged channel. We were rapidly coming up behind (at a blazing 7 
kts) a Woods Hole boat that I guess was a research vessel. It had 
15-20 college age folks on it, and a radio blaring. It was being 
pushed with an outboard that was way too small for the boat and load. 
I called about 10 times on the VHF, signalled with the air horns - 
all to no avail.  Finally, after 4-5 boats stacked up behind us, we 
proceeded to pass as slowly as we could, but we were still making a 
fairly large wake. As I got the bow up alongside the Woods Hole boat, 
I hollered on the loud hailer, asking them to slow down so I could 
slow down and not wake them - again to no avail. Some of the 
passengers turned around and looked, but the operator continued on at 
the same speed, so we passed them.  He was fairly close to the bank 
on his stbd side, so that gave me adequate room to pass, moving over 
to the opposite side of the narrow channel. Two of the following 
boats then futilely attempted to arrange for a pass and then passed 
slowly, as we did, but the last 2-3 boats blew by them, at a very 
close distance and REALLY waked them. All but one of the boats were 
of a size similar to the Celestial, which is 43'.

It is such a pleasure to work with the professionals, such as the tow 
boat skippers. I always get a response to a call. Someone said that 
the tow boat skippers don't like big wakes. That is very,very true! A 
wake can make the tow and barges move in opposite vertical directions 
as the wave first strikes one, then the other, which puts extreme 
stress on the connecting lines, and has been known to break them. 
Also, many inland tugs have extremely low freeboard, so low that a 2' 
wake can flow onto the walkways and into any open doors to the engine 
room (engine room doors are usually open to allow better ventilation 
on hot days). Tow boat skippers keep in constant touch with each 
other, so that they can arrange passes where there is ample room to 
do it safely. It is strange how wide a tow can become, or how narrow 
a channel can get when a known "Waker" is trying to get by one, 
either when meeting or overtaking...... Of course, they would never 
intentionally hold anyone up! ;) Love em!

YMMV, but one should refrain from stereotyping. JMVHO......


Take care and be safe.

Wayne
M/V Celestial
Albin43 Sundeck