Te c h n i c a l & S a f e t y
A Near Miss
The Confidential Hazardous Reporting Programme ’ s ( CHIRP ) latest issue contains a report of a near miss between a sailing vessel and ship .
A catamaran en route to the Scilly Isles at night with a defective engine and making 2 knots under sail in good visibility and minimal sea state encountered a ship on his starboard bow showing a red navigation light . His AIS receiver showed CPA as zero in 6 minutes . Despite shining a torch on his sails and unsuccessfully attempting VHF contact the ship showed no intention of changing course so the catamaran turned to starboard ( head to wind ) and narrowly avoided being run down . When the ship had passed VHF contact was established and the ship stated he had not seen the catamaran ’ s navigation light or seen him on radar .
CHIRP contacted the ship operator and was party to their detailed investigation . The summary was that the ship did not receive the initial DSC call , the ship ’ s watchkeepers did not see a navigation light until the vessels had passed and pointed out a discrepancy in the reported position as evidenced by a radar screen shot of the incident .
The incident and CHIRP ’ s response raises some interesting points , not all of which can be covered here .
1 . The catamaran has decided to fit a transmitting AIS . However this should not be regarded as a panacea .
A response by the RYA ’ s Stuart Carruthers to an unrelated letter in the November issue of PBO makes the point that recreational boaters cannot rely on their AIS transmissions being seen on ships for two reasons :
The first is that the original IMO requirements for ships to carry AIS did not require it to be displayed on radar or chart plotters . It only became a requirement to display it on radars in 2008 . With the typical life of a merchant ship being 20 to 25 years there will be a large number of ships out there that have the AIS information in text form rather than visual .
Close quarters but safe . The near-miss catamaran in the CHIRP report was forced to make an emergency turn
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