I believe that the large ship, the 122 foot Mariner, had functioning radar. The J boat,
Hilaria, didn't have radar, and I don't think they had a radar reflector. I haven't seen
the final report, but failure to alter course or slow down after seeing the ship is the
cause I heard cited. I'm skeptical that they would have been able to use the radar if the
autopilot was beyond their skills, but if they had a minimal radar, and knew how to use
it, they would have seen the large ship earlier.

I don't agree with RB that its easy to avoid ferries because their course is predictable.
Boston Harbor, for instance, has "booze cruises" that meander randomly. And many of the
ports have cruise ships, commuters, or head boats, that use different routes depending on
the tides. And, of course, it always seems that the ferries are going to the same places
I headed toward. My claim is not the radar isn't useful, but that a basic radar should do
a reasonable job of ferry avoidance.




wrote in message ...
On 17 Nov 2003, (Bobsprit) wrote:

Do ferries and barges just wander all over
the LIS? No, they operate in lanes that can
easily be avoided with GPS.

Totally incorrect as any real sailor could tell you.
I guess by your resoning there is no reason for
ferries and barges to have radar or even keep a
wath, since they are so predictable.

Yes, they stay in deep channel's and in the last 8
years I have yet to see a ferry or tug off it's lane.

There was, of course, the collision-related death earlier this summer
after a large (moving at abt. 7 kts) N.Y.C.-based cruise boat crashed
into a J-105 on its way from Larchmont to Block Island which then sank
off the coast of Connecticut. Though reports of that incident suggest
that the collision resulted mostly from the respective crews'
inattention aggravated by the sailing crew's failure to turn off their
boat's autopilot when they saw the motor vessel approaching, one
legitimately might wonder what may have occurred if both (or, for that
matter, either) of the crews were using radar on that dark night.

[Most of] LIS has very little in the way
of visibility issues [on most days].

As Mr. Morris and others, too, have noted, this is almost always
correct.