There is plenty of fog like that, especially in the summer out
here. Sometimes it can get so thick that I can barely see the
bow of my Cal 20. And, the fog is moving at 20 kts or more.

"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 19:07:16 -0400, "Simple Simon"
wrote:


"Shen44" wrote in message
...
Seems this one went belly-up .... thanks AOL.

OK Neal, here's a scenario with some questions ....

You're proceeding in the Mother of all Pea-soup fogs (can't see your
bow),
sounding one prolong followed by two short blast and hear a fog signal,
someplace forward of your beam (can't exactly tell where, because sound
in fog
can be distorted) of one prolong followed by two short.
What is it? Where is it? What's it doing?What must you do? Are we on
collision
course? How do you know the answers to any of these questions?

I can tell it is NOT a motor boat. I can tell is either a sailboat, a
NUC, a RAM,
or one of the other vessels that sounds a one prolong/two short blast
signal.

Where is it? It is somewhere on a line between me and the sound signal it
produces.
What's it doing? Can't be told because it can be doing any number of
things.
What must I do? I must determine if a risk of collision exists before I
do
anything else. If I determine a risk of collision exists then I must act
to avoid
a collision which might mean I can make a course change or it might mean
holding to my present course and speed of three or four knots until
further
information becomes available.
Are we on a collision course. We might be but that will take some time
to determine. If the signal stays on the same bearing and appears to be
getting louder then we are on a collision course

How do I know the answer to these questions? The answers are known
when sufficient information becomes available to answer them and not
before.

As for a pea soup fog so think that I cannot see to my bow which is
all of twenty feet away when I'm at the tiller, there exists no fog so
thick. It is a myth. It is perhaps correct to say a fog is so thick that
a ship that has the bow hundreds of feet or hundreds of yards
from the helm may not be able to see to the bow but don't attempt
to say the same thing about a small vessel such as mine.

You are completely, absolutely and utterly wrong about fog density.
The fact that you make such a claim demonstrates how little real
experience you have had at sea. I have personally been in fog thick
enough to reduce visibility to less than 5 metres.

Peter Wiley