|
 Chris Berners-Price spent a day with Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) and the pilots in Southampton Waters. Here are his comments:
I thought should share some of the problems of mixing pleasure craft and the biggest ships in the world in the confined spaces of the Solent.
Any ship longer than 60 metres or carrying more than 12 passengers requires a pilot onboard. On larger tankers there are 2 pilots. (Ferry Masters take an exemption exam.) Any ship above 150 metres has a Moving Prohibited Zone of 1000 metres ahead and 100 metres aside even if there is no leading patrol, as that might be busy elsewhere.
On the bridge, even the "best" ships have a "dead zone" of 200 metres ahead where they cannot see small craft (including yachts!). The container ships and tankers have a dead zone of miles. Surprisingly none of the vessels had any CCTV systems - even the 180 degree turn done in the docks was done by guess work and transits from the bridge.
 One surprise to me was that there is no depth gauge visible to the helmsman or pilot (it is on the back wall with the recording equipment). So the ships follow the channel by turning at fixed points picked out by transits and radar, and they cannot change these points no matter what might be in the way.
Ships speed in the channel varies from 10 knots for slow tankers to 22 knots for large container ships. However there is a speed limit of 7 knots on the way out past Fawley Refinery - a large ship at normal speed would pull a super tanker off the jetty!
Once past the refinery the pilot calls for Full Boost Power to try and build up enough speed for the turn. Once at full power, the engines cannot be throttled back for 10 minutes - they are going for the ride whatever happens.
To do the Bramble Turn they need a minimum speed (typically 12-15 knots).
Modern ships have Controllable Pitch Propellors (CPP) which controls the direction of thrust. If they decided to do a crash stop, it takes at least 20 seconds to change the pitch - much longer on older ships with gearboxes. It then takes miles to stop, the ship will lose steerage way and maybe run aground and the engine might be wrecked. They are not going to do this for a small pleasure craft that they cannot see properly.
Some indication of the feelings amongst the professionals is shown by the fact we have been given a nickname - "WAFI" - "Wind Assisted F***ing Idiots" ( or MAFI = Motor .....).
 From a yacht it looks easy to judge whether you are going to cross ahead of a large vessel, but consider these points:
- is he at constant speed?
- is he reaching a turn point?
- is the pilot head down doing the turn on radar (even in good visibility)?
- what will be his radius of turn?
- what happens if you have MOB or problems during the tack?
Here are some tips to make everybody's life easier:
- try not to cross ahead if you can
- do any manoeuvre early to let the pilot know you have seen him
- look behind you - a lot of problems were caused by yachts not looking behind
At night, lights look different to our experiences! From Hook you can see as far as the Chichester Bar Beacon. The modern LED buoy lights, big ship lights and the shore lights make our nav lights look puny. Even though the bridge is on red light, the extra light from computer screens, displays and the admin area mean that the crew never get proper night vision.
For example, we ran past one light and only identified the yacht when we were close enough to pick it up in our working lights. A torch shone up the sail would have given us a much better idea of what was happening.
They have 2 radios on different sides of the bridge and always monitor CH 16 on one (don't forget to listen to CH 12 near Bramble as he may attempt to call you before resorting to 5 blasts). I had differing views about what channel to call them on Xchannel as most did not use 13 but the usual 6, 8, 72, 77. If you call them you can always say "I am illuminating my sails can you see me?". I did not meet one natural English speaker on the 3 ships apart from the pilot, so be ready to keep calling while they find someone to answer you.
For your own preservation the best bet is to avoid them by miles!
|
