On the reef.

Couple of things in this! In the first place, lack of knowledge made him place too much reliance on his electronics - tis a known fact electrickery and sea water do not mix! going to do these big journeys you need to be aware and capable of other systems of nav (as Jehardman states) AND more importantly use it! Modern navigators tend to use the electronics only (normal human failing I'm afraid - bone bloody idle, we all are to a certain extent, depends on your upbringing!).

Situation the guy was in, obviously more scared of the 'baddies' than the reef, who can blame him, (yeah Seadog we agree on this one - I'd be a bit circumspect too if you don't know who/how strong the opposition is). I can understand his concern and for this I believe he did right in standing on, but he was aware there was a bloody great reef ahead somewhere! Slow down, Ok he was 'going slow' but considering the situation, it sounds as if subconciously they were cranking the engine up a bit when no one was looking - if evry body is doing that and your running on dead rekoning you WILL have a problem, that and a following wind and tide and going downhill into the bargain - play bloody havoc with anybodies maths, did here!

Also of course (shouldn't really say this) but "**** happens" and boy it happened here!

The good things out of this is the fact that not much damage was done, nobody got hurt (they could have done one way or another) AND your mate was man enough to admit he messed up! We now have a bunch of guys with a lot of experience! who won't make the same mistake again -probably get bloody shot next time for being blase!!

To be fair, though I like to think I wouldn't have I probably would have done what he did mostly, more by instinct than sensiblity! The main difference being he had an excuse (lack of experience); I wouldn't have!!! But having said that, who can tell! Fear makes us do strange things and believe you me there was obviously a lot of fear in these decissions (the guy probably wouldn't admit it afterwards, but don't forget the whole boat felt the same, and theres nothing like panic to drive anybody into stupidity! I feel for the guy!!

 

Again I agree with you walrus (this better not become a habit Do you know that in Oz, they dont teach celestial navgation???? not until you get up to the higher tickets....I believe it's M3 and they are thinkinking of removing it from that ticket to....we certainly rely to heavily on electronic systems, it's getting to the stage where you can't even find someone to teach C nav. We all would like to think that we wouldnt have hit the reef...this guy has 15yrs exp...One would think he knew what he was doing...and i gather from what he has said that, they were not overly concerned about the baddies as they were heading away from the area, it was the thought of going back that gave them the worries.

 

Yeah, like I sumised, fear! Understandable really; small (unarmed boat?) against a large well armed bunch of cut throats - scare the **** outa me too!
The lack of celestial nav also scares the **** outa me! Mind you I joined a ship in Newcastle (yours not ours!) back in '87 (thought the sun etc might make a change from the God awful weather in the Northern North Sea), Second Mate was showing me around the wheelhouse, came to a small box and thought **** can I remember how to use one of these (sextant) when he said "don't bother, I've been here six months, just come across the Pacific and nobodies opened the box yet" (which was fine by me but as I was relieving the guy and Nav gear was my responsibility thought I best make sure it was still there! after all they is sort of expensive! It was, but no I couldn't remember how to get it out of the box either!) Mind you when Deep Sea I used to take a noon set of sights every other day, just to make sure everything was OK - don't trust anything me! (especially electrickery! more especially if I've played with it!)!

 

Yes it was unarmed, but flare guns are pretty handy..have to have a flare gun, it's a safety issue and you can't be arrested for it either..pretty scarey a flare in your wheel house...and nobody thinks of it as a weapon

 

trouble is a flare is a single shot - there as dangerous as not having anything, unless you've got several (and half a dozen flare guns would look a tad suspicious wouldn't it, unless they do 'throw away flare guns these days?)