On Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:08:48 -0400, you wrote: > >I agree with Ken. > >We do not hesitate to travel at night either. As Ken said, the lighted nav >marks are easier to see at night and at longer distances, as are properly >lighted vessels. There are usually fewer other vessels around then too.
We will travel at night too. But we don't have our batteries run down so that we can't call on the radio as Ken did, and we have charts and know our position on them, and we don't ignore the radar. We have our radio, radar, and running lights on. It's OK in the Chesapeake and out in the ocean, but I wouldn't travel in the ICW at night in areas where there are a lot of crab pots and/or shoaling, nor do I like to travel along the Atlantic coast of Florida where there are fishermen with no lights just kind of hanging out. Also we do not like to come into a dock or enter a harbor at night unless it is someplace like Miami which is never dark. Although I narrowly missed running over a daymark there - at the last minute, I saw that it was reflecting the bow lights. And I wouldn't be doing it if we were not in good health with appropriate amounts of sleep in order that our judgment not be impaired, we wear our PFDs, we have practiced MOB with each of us retrieving the other, and someone is always up in the cockpit looking around. If the weather is bad or if one of us is sick, we don't go. > >We do generally pre-program our GPS with our route so all the navigation is >done before we lift anchor and all we have to do is avoid close encounters >with other vessels and enjoy the trip. > >In the Chesapeake and Delaware areas we plot our routes to stay out of the >commercial shipping channels. The big ships must stay in the channels so >that eliminates that hazard (except where we cross their channels), but we >still have to be alert to tugs and barges as they can have drafts less than >ours. We handle them by using our autopilot to keep our course >more-or-less steady and put the Electronic Bearing Line of the radar on >approaching targets to ascertain the possibility of collision. If they >stay on the EBL as they approach within a half mile we usually make a big >turn to the right. > >Generally we don't call them on the VHF to keep things simpler but we do >scan 13/16 and respond if they call. > > > > >Norm >S/V Bandersnatch >Lying Julington Creek >30 07.695N 081 38.484W > > >> >> But now with GPS and everything, it very is easy >> to do the Chesapeake safely at night. With all the >> nav aids on the bay, in some ways it is easier at >> night than day, as long as you don't trust only >> them and try to get into an unknown harbor, for >> example. >> Of course, I do avoid crossing behind any tugs >> path at night no matter where I am. -Ken >> > > > >_______________________________________________ >Liveaboard mailing list >[email protected] >To adjust your membership settings over the web >http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard >To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] >The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ > >To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > >The Mailman Users Guide can be found here >http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
