The hot blog topic today is the collision of two passenger ferries in Boston yesterday. gCaptain, Panbo, and Captain Rodriguez have all weighed in…now it’s our turn!
In case you missed it, here’s the aftermath:
I’ve got to agree with Captain Rodriguez: AIS is wonderful, and it might have helped, but hold on: fog is not new! For centuries, mariners have developed guidelines that, when observed, help them avoid hitting one-another in fog. Today, professional skippers have honest-to-goodness RULES to follow in these circumstances. It’s all too easy to become complacent, especially on a run you make a dozen times a day, but still…when conditions change, remember to follow the rules.
Following the rules doesn’t completely eliminate all risk, of course: Sometimes some confusing or erroneous information and a minor misjudgement or two combine with a bit of bad luck to create a collision anyway. “It’s never just one thing”, as every after-incident report I’ve ever read says at some point. Still, the rules are a good place to start!
So I say yeah, put AIS on those boats. I find it kind of shocking that they aren’t so equipped already…whyever not? But still, the plain old rules-of-the-road (the 72 ColRegs) are, at this point, extremely refined. All mariners need to know them, and know when to apply them.
