I turn some found footage into an educational video for boaters about the Rules of the Road when passing other vessels.
From the video’s description:
In April 2023, I traveled down the Alligator River-Pungo River Canal in North Carolina in my Ranger Tug. I encountered a “traffic jam” and became one of the boats that passed the others. This video shows sped up (2x) footage from that time on the waterway with narration that explains the Rules of the Road for passing. I hope boaters find it educational, or at least interesting.
My goal is to make more videos about my Great Loop boating trip and other cool things I do. Support me by subscribing to this channel, liking this (and other videos), and commenting on this video to let me know what you like, don’t like, or want to see.
Got a few spare bucks? Support my blogging and video efforts! Buy me a coffee!
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mlanger
Transcript
Don’t want to watch the video? Just want the narration? Here’s my script:
Hi! I’m Maria Langer and I’m currently cruising the Great Loop along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway with my two dogs, Rosie and Lily, in my 2019 Ranger Tug R-29 CB, Do It Now.
In early April 2023, I made the 72-mile trip from Belhaven, NC, to Elizabeth City, NC. That took me through the Alligator-Pungo River Canal, which is what you see here. Along the way, I reached what I can only refer to as a traffic jam: four motor vessels, all larger than mine, in single file on the port side of the canal passing two sailing vessels under power on the starboard side of the canal. Eventually, I caught up with them and, one-by-one, passed all of these boats and even two more much farther ahead. I had the presence of mind to turn on the boat’s “Bow Cam,” a Go Pro Hero 8, to capture footage of this part of my trip. That’s what you’re looking at now, sped up so you don’t fall asleep.
Instead of just putting this footage online, I thought I’d turn it into a learning tool. At the time I recorded this (and wrote this narration), I’d recently received training and passed all of my tests for the Coast Guard issued OUPV or “Six-Pack” Captain’s License, so a lot of the Rules of the Road information was very fresh in my mind. A bunch of it applies here so I thought I’d talk about it a bit. (And, in case you’re wondering, I got my Captain’s license in October 2023.)
The first thing I want to mention is that if you are a boater, you should obtain, read, and keep on hand for reference the Rules of the Road. This little book, the contents of which are included in more wide-encompassing boating reference guides such as Chapman’s Piloting and Seamanship, has very important information that every boater should know. The most important, of course, is the pecking order of boats that you might encounter along the way and how you should arrange to pass them safely.
If you know a little about this, you might think that sailboats have the right of way over powerboats. That is true when the sailboat is under sail power only and has no motor running. As soon as a sailboat turns on its engine, even if it has one or more sails up, it becomes a power boat. If one or more sails are up, it is said to be “motor sailing.” Sailboats that do this should be displaying a specific day marker, a black cone with its apex facing down, which indicates to other boaters that they are motor sailing. In my experience, however, they never do this. Instead, as you approach a sailboat with a sail up, you’re left to wonder whether it should be considered a sailboat or a powerboat for the rules of the road. This is one of my pet peeves and I won’t get into that here.
In this case, it’s pretty easy to see that these sailboats are under power. They don’t have any sails up! That makes them powerboats as far as the Rules of the Road are concerned.
In this situation, however, they still have the right of way because they are the boats being passed. In Rules of the Road lingo, that makes each of them Stand On vessels. In fact, as far as my boat is concerned, all of the boats in front of me are Stand On vessels if I want to pass them.
The opposite of a Stand On vessel is a Give Way vessel. In this case, that’s the boat that’s doing the passing. All of the power boats lined up and passing those sailboats are Give Way vessels as they pass. They remain Give Way vessels until the passing is complete and they are a safe distance away from the Stand On vessel.
The Inland Rules of the Rules of the Road – which is what govern the Intracoastal Waterway, inland rivers, and other bodies of water inland of the COLREGS Demarcation Line – that’s another thing I won’t get into here — state that when passing another boat going in the same direction, captains should arrange passing. The Rules of the Road explain how to do this with whistle (or horn) signals. One short blast of the whistle by the Give Way (or passing) vessel tells the Stand On vessel that the Give Way vessel wants to put the Stand On vessel on its port side, thus passing on the Stand On vessel’s starboard side. Two short blasts say the Give Way vessel wants to put the Stand On vessel on its starboard side, thus passing on the Stand On vessel’s port side. If the Stand On vessel agrees, it should respond with the same whistle signal.
Of course, in real life among pleasure boaters, no one does this. The main reason, I think, is because no one reads the Rules of the Road or understands them as rules that really do need to be followed to keep boating safe. Instead, what’s far more common is for the Give Way (or passing) vessel to call the Stand On vessel on the radio – we’re all tuned into the hailing frequency of 16 on our VHF radios – and tell them they’d like to pass on that vessel’s port (in this case) or starboard side. The Rules of the Road say this is okay, as long as both captains agree. If they agree on radio, they don’t need to sound their whistles.
An odd little side note here is the way tow captains arrange for passing on the inland rivers, like the Illinois, Missouri, and Mississippi. They use their radios to make whistle calls. So one captain will say to the other, “I’ll pass you on the two,” meaning that he will pass with the other boat on his starboard side. The other captain will respond, “I’ll see you on the two.” This is universally understood and it eliminates a lot of loud whistle toots that may or may not be heard over a tow’s powerful engines.
I should point out here that the Stand On vessel has absolutely no responsibility to move out of the way or even give permission for other boaters pass. It’s common courtesy to let others pass if it’s safe, but it’s not required. I’m willing to bet, however, that if these sailboat captains were being jerks and said no and stuck to the middle of the channel, one of these powerboat captains would be a bigger jerk and pass them anyway. Again, too many people just don’t understand the importance of the Rules of the Road.
Anyway, as I was following the boat named Graduate Housing, the powerboat in front of me, I was listening to all the other powerboat captains make arrangements to pass those sailboats. In most cases, I’d hear the sailboats respond to confirm those passing agreements. It was pretty obvious to all concerned how this was going to play out, so I’m sure a few of the radio calls were skipped. We all knew that the powerboats, which normally cruise at 6 to 10 knots, would be passing the sailboats, which cruise at 4 to 7 knots. Still, it was good to hear all those radio calls.
The best way to call another boat on the radio is to know its name. I have three tools to find out the name of another boat near me.
The first is binoculars. A boat name is normally on the stern of the boat. I pick up my binoculars and look. Sometimes I can see it, sometimes I can’t. I recall one boat’s name being blocked by its own wake.
If that doesn’t work, I can consult my chartplotter to see if the boat has an AIS target. If it does, I can tap the target on the screen to get its name. This works great for commercial boats because they are required to transmit an AIS signal. Lots of larger pleasure boats do, too. Even I got that feature installed on my boat. If I’m really close to the boat, its target icon will appear in red as a potential collision. In that case, the name appears, too. I can set up my chartplotter to display the names all the time, but I think that would lead to a lot of on-screen clutter in a place with lots of targets.
Finally, If I have reason to believe a pleasure boat is on Nebo, I can consult that. Nebo is an app that lots of boaters use to track each other. You can track me on Nebo; I’ll put the link in the video description.
If I can’t get a boat’s name and I want to call it on the radio, I can use some descriptive info, like “red sailboat on the Alligator Canal.” I used that one later in the day.
When you’re passing another boat that’s pretty close to you, it’s common courtesy to do what some folks call a slow pass. This minimizes the wake that’ll hit the boat you’re passing so they aren’t rocked around as much. I usually just do it, but on that day, a lot of the boaters being passed just told the passing boats to keep their speed. So each time I asked for a pass and wasn’t advised on speed, I asked, “Do you want me to slow down?” Most of these boaters said no. They could turn into my wake to cut down on the rocking and that’s what they did.
Slowly, over the course of about 30 minutes, this traffic jam on the Alligator-Pungo River Canal cleared. First, the powerboats passed the sailboats, one by one. Then the faster powerboats passed the slower powerboats, one by one. I happened to be the fastest powerboat that day – I had 72 nautical miles to cover and just wanted to get to my destination and had been cruising at about 14 knots. So when I brought up the rear passing the first two sailboats, I was ready to start getting in front of those powerboats.
On this particular day, I was right behind Graduate Housing, which I knew was being transported by two captains from Belhaven, where we’d overnighted, to somewhere up in Chesapeake Bay. They’d been in front of me, having left about 20 minutes before I did, all morning. I knew they were going to cruise at least as fast as I was, so I figured I’d just follow them while they got in front of the slower boats. But, to my surprise, the Captain hailed me on the radio and told me they were having steering issues so I could pass. They’d move over for me. And they did – after passing the second sailboat, they got in front of it on the starboard side of the channel. I passed them.
That left three other powerboats in front of me, now spread farther apart. I think the captains must have seen me coming. I called them, one by one, and got the okays to pass.
Now while I know a lot of my videos from Do It Now feature narrow channels and rivers, I don’t want you to think that’s the only water I travel in. More often than I like, I’m out in bigger water, in wide rivers, bays, and sounds. I prefer rivers and canals, mostly because the water is generally calmer and there’s more to see. But when I’m out in open water, I’m usually passing (or being passed by) boats much farther from me and there isn’t much need for radio communications or horn signals. In addition, sometimes I’ll cross paths with a boat on a different course. In that case, different rules of the road apply.
Because I just finished my Captain’s training and was tested on all this stuff, it was really fresh in my mind. I find myself casting a critical eye on the actions of other boat captains as they navigate around other traffic. My conclusion is that barely half of them have any idea of the Rules of the Road and how it establishes Stand On and Give Way vessels. That leaves the burden of avoiding a collision on me more times than it should. But the Rules of the Road also state that if a Stand On vessel – one with the right of way – feels that the Give Way vessel isn’t doing what it should to avoid a collision, the Stand On vessel must act to avoid a collision. And I’m okay with that.
Please don’t think my boating activities are a series of close passes like these or close calls with boats that don’t know the rules. They’re not. At this point, I’ve traveled more than 6000 miles this trip and 95% of the time, I’m not interacting with any other boaters in any way. While the waterways aren’t nearly as big as the sky, they’re still pretty big, especially if you get out away from heavily populated areas and their marinas.
I hope you’ve found this video and narration interesting or educational. If you did, click the LIKE button and subscribe! If you have any questions or comments, please put them in the comment area for this video. I’m really bad about answering email so that’s the best way to reach me.
Thanks for watching! And remember: life is short. Whatever it is that you want to do with your life, don’t wait. Do It Now.
