T&T: Charleston ? collision caused by failure to follow

[Mike Maurice]

A few comments. Keep in mind that the story is short of details.

The CG is rightly strict with professional mariners.

You may recall that I have stated repeatedly that if you are involved in 
a collision, the chances of it being 100% the other guy's fault is 
almost 0%.

The tour boat captain made numerous errors which came to the attention 
of the CG by virtue of the accident.
Complacency.
Failure to sound the danger signal promptly, in fact not at all.
Failure to render assistance.
Failure to report the accident.
Failure to stay on scene.
Poor choice of track; going through a fleet of small boats when there 
was plenty of room that would have avoided them.
Failure to keep in contact with the race organizers. Bet that won't 
happen again.

Remember, there is no such thing as Right of Way (ROW), there is only 
collision avoidance. The tour boat operator showed very poor judgment, 
the result which could have resulted in a death.

The sailboat operator is probably involved in his own legal flypaper: 
standby for news.

When running the Willamette River with a 130' tour boat, the senior 
captain had us maintain contact with the shell racing boat organizer as 
we approached and passed their training boats and crews.

Yesterday, I watched a 50' charter boat with passengers cut directly in 
front of a container ship doing 15 knots and accelerating, the passing 
distance was about 150 yards. This after the big ship had chosen a path 
avoiding all nearby traffic, near the CR buoy at Columbia River 
entrance. As I predicted the big ship sounded the 5 blasts, which would 
have been of little use.

The legal flypaper is VERY sticky. Like collision avoidance, something 
to constantly practice avoiding.


Mike

+++++++++++++++
Capt. Mike Maurice
Beaverton Oregon(near Portland).