VHF marine radio operators are standing by

Who would of thought just a few short years ago that your mobile phone could replace all of that expensive complicated, and bulky electronic equipment on your boat. It has a GPS, lots of marine charting apps are available, radar weather, and even a fish finder app. If you get into trouble you can also call for help, or can you?

Posted on the Flager Live website was the story I took this excerpt from.

"The drifting boat and passengers were located by Air One on the Intracoastal Waterway near the Whitney Lab in Marineland around 1:15 a.m. The Palm Coast boat owner, Danilo Gomez, 43, explained that he, three family members and the teenager were heading home from St. Augustine when they experienced engine problems. He said the cell phone they had did not work and he was unable to call for assistance."

I don't know exactly why the cell phone on the boat didn't work. It might have been broken, had a dead battery, or maybe they were just too far from a cell tower. But I think we can comfortably infer they didn't have a VHF radio. Otherwise why would they have been way over due, and drifting around in the ICW in the middle of the night?

One hundred and twenty seconds

It's a cool and blustery October day on the Alligator-Pungo River portion of the ICW in North Carolina. Captain Ralph Robinson feels a bump, and a vibration that felt sort of like a grounding, but nothing serious. The boat tips to starboard, and then turns to port, just as the port engine goes to maximum rpms, and almost instantly all three bilge pump indicators light up on the dash, and the high water alarm starts to ring as well. He jumps up from the helm, runs to the aft of the bridge, looks down at the swim platform, and sees water just starting to come over it. The boat is already now 12” lower in the water, and he instantly realizes they are sinking.

He, and his mate Jay Huber run down the stairs to release the tender that is strapped down on the swim platform. They get one of the three straps released, and they are now standing in knee deep water on the platform. The tender is being dragged under by the swim platform, and the tension on the other straps is now too great to release them. Ralph asks Jay to go up to the bridge, and get the handheld VHF at the bridge station, and the latitude longitude position as well. Looking into the closed sliding glass doors leading to the main salon, he sees water rising up inside them, and a geyser of water boiling up in the center of the main salon some eighteen inches high. Ralph said of the moment, "Mental confusion abounds, and trying to make any sense out of this situation only slows our decision process".

Ralph deploys the emergency life raft right on the aft cockpit deck, just as the water starts to pour over the sides of the aft deck coamings, and scrambles into it. Hanging onto the bridge stair's railing as the yacht sinks, he maneuvers the life raft over to the port side, going from hand hold, to hand hold, using various parts of the boat, he keeps the raft  right next to the boat at about amidships. As he nears the bridge of the quickly sinking boat, he calls to Jay to give him the VHF, and the latitude longitude numbers. Jay hands Ralph the VHF, and advises him of the ships position. Ralph remembers his cell phone is on the console of the bridge, and asks Jay to retrieve it. Just as Jay grabs the cell phone, the sinking accelerates, as the boat loses all buoyancy. Water starts to pour over the bridge side coamings of the boat, which is sinking aft end first. Jay is now already nearly waist deep on the bridge, and desperately tries to reach the raft, but the force of the water rushing over the bridge is too much to overcome, and Jay is carried down with the boat. Jay tries to swim to the surface, but strikes the bimini top, over the bridge and is disoriented for a few seconds, before he gathered his wits, and swims out from underneath the bimini, through its support tubes to the surface.

Ralph had been fearfully searching around, sees a hat, and grabs it, but no hair is attached to it. About fifteen very long seconds later, Jay surfaces, and Ralph drags a very cold, and wet colleague into life raft, and out of the 58 degree river, partially filling the raft with water in the process.

In just 120 short, and adrenaline driven seconds, about the time to took you to read this far, Ralph, and Jay went from sitting comfortably on the bridge of a 59' Fairline Squadron yacht, to squatting cold, and wet in a life raft that was floating in a desolate portion of the ICW adjacent to the Dismal Swamp in North Carolina. They had no ID's, no money or credit cards, and only the very cold wet clothes on their back. The boat was now completely gone.

The VHF handheld radio was used to place a Mayday call to the Coast Guard. It was answered by the Norfolk USCG station, via repeater stations, located about 75 miles away. Ralph is very concerned about Jay's condition, who is now suffering from hypothermia, and is so cold he can't even speak, and requests that a helicopter be sent for Jay. The USCG radio operator starts to ask questions, some of which, Ralph cannot answer, such as what is the owner's address in London. The radio operator insists that no bird can be sent for Jay, until all of the blanks on the form are filled out. Ralph does not know some of the information the Coast Guard is asking for, and the radio operator will not dispatch the bird without it. Despite many requests, the radio operator will not let an increasingly frustrated Ralph talk to a supervisor.

The nearly twenty minute radio impasse is ended when the bow of a local crabber's boat nudges the tented life raft. The crabber had spotted them floating, picks them up, covers Jay with a coat, and takes them to Belhaven North Carolina. The last radio contact with the USCG, was the call Ralph made to advise them that a local boat had picked them up, and took them to Belhaven. The USCG radio operator just advised Ralph there would be an investigation about the accident.

The Pungo River

On a Sunday, just three days before the accident, a sailboat was traveling in the very same section of the ICW, noticed day marker 15 was missing, hailed the USCG on the VHF, and reported it. The USCG logged the call, but did nothing. No "Securite" announcement was made, and no further investigation was persued. The following Tuesday, Ralph was approaching the missing marker, and he was puzzled. The marker was showing on the Furuno chart plotter, well off to his starboard side, but there wasn't a marker visible.

What had happened was the day marker number 15 post was made of large welded pipe sections 12” in diameter, and a barge, or some other vessel had struck the marker sometime before the accident. With the top portion of the marker broken off, the remaining open pipe post, lay hidden just a couple of feet underwater. The marker post was actually located over five hundred feet away from its charted location, and this was verified by the insurance carrier. The 50,000 lb Fairline yacht impacted the mis-charted submerged post at 22kts.

When the yacht hit the top of the pipe at amidships on the port side under the Master Stateroom, it cut away a 12" wide, by 10' foot long strip of the hull like a potato peeler, and forced it down into the pipe.

Along the way, the pipe struck the oil pan of the port engine, ripping it free of the engine mounts, and propeller shaft, forced it upright, and drove the engine through the floor into the main salon.  Free of the shaft loads, the now holed motor spun up to its maximum rpms, and then quickly, and traumatically failed. Within seconds, the gaping hole had flooded, the engine room, and the boat was now rapidly sinking.

Belhaven North Carolina is a small town located near the mouth of the Pungo River, and is eight miles from Pamlico Sound. Another 15 miles carries you to North Carolina's Outer banks. A soggy, and cold Ralph, and Jay were dumped off at the River Forest Manor, and Marina Shipyard, and looking like a couple of homeless guys, told their story to Axson Smith the owner.

Axson immediately dug cash out of his till, and had an employee drive Ralph, and Jay to a local store, where they were able to buy some new dry, and warm clothes, and provided rooms for them at the River Forest Manor, which is also owned by Axson.

There is a round of many phone calls made to inform the owner in London, and to arrange for replacement ID's, credit cards, and cash. Getting new plastic for the now non existing wallets would take several days in this remote area, and much to both Jay, and Ralph’s pleasure, and surprise, three of the local restaurants offered to feed them on the house. The hospitality provided by the residents of Belhaven, to a couple of shipwrecked visitors, was amazing and heartwarming.

The boat was salvaged, albeit with some struggle. Divers attached lines to the bow of submerged boat, and towed it about a mile, leaving the bow out of the water on a sand bar. Working in the shallower water, and using plywood to close the large rent in the bottom, the boat was raised on the following Saturday, and towed afloat to River Forest Shipyard, where it was hauled for investigation by USCG, NC Wildlife officers, and Lloyds of London. 

The initial suspicion by the investigating groups was that the vessel must have run over a standing marker, and the captain was negligent. This notion was quickly dispelled, and Ralph was completely exonerated, when everyone could see the condition of the bow, which was without a scratch, the location of the actual hole in the bottom of the boat, and the fact that the day marker was not located in its charted location. At the time of the salvage, a strip of the boats hull was still visible stuck inside the underwater marker's pipe.

The insurance company requested, and received a copy of the USCG VHF transmission recordings. The recordings included the call by the sailboat reporting the marker missing at least three days prior to the accident, and also included Ralph's unsuccessful twenty minute VHF Mayday call requesting help. The insurance company filed a request to sue the USCG, and very shortly all matters were promptly resolved. Two senior USCG officers, in full dress whites, drove down from Norfolk, and personally apologized to Ralph, for the now removed VHF radio operator's actions, and averred that this is not the way they normally do business. The owner was given a check for the full replacement value of the boat by his insurance company.

Ralph has made a small change to his equipment inventory when he travels now. This consists of a waterproof "Jump Bag" he bought from West Marine. His original jump bag was not waterproof, and was in the main salon. In the new bag is a handheld VHF radio, Raymarine RC400 GPS chart plotter, cash, credit cards, and a Spot satellite GPS messenger. The bag is always close at hand now. Relying on the kindness of strangers is nice, but being even more prepared, is priceless.

I have known Ralph, for many years, and of all of the captains I have dealt with, Ralph is the most competent, and professional of the lot. His story is remarkable. A sinking ship, refusal by the USCG to provide aid, warm hospitality, and assistance to total strangers from the residents of Belhaven NC, and most of all, how your life can be dramatically changed, in just 120 short seconds.

Maybe all boaters owners should take a couple of minutes to inventory their safety gear, and mentally run through what you would do, if this happened to you.


If you need the services of a high quality captain, you can contact Captain Ralph Robinson at his e-mail address capt_ralph400@yahoo.com


The photographs of the salvaged vessel were graciously provided by Axson Smith, the owner of the River Forest Manor and Marina. This is a good place to stop on your travels down the intercoastal waterway.


The photo of the Pongo river is from the blog Scooters Voyage.

You can learn more about picturesque Belhaven NC here.


You can find out more about the Great Dismal Swamp here

If you came here on a direct link to this article, you can find my other articles in the archives to your right, or you can see the current articles here on my home page, thanks, Bill Bishop 

The accidental lesson in 72 Colregs "Lines of Demarcation"

Today I'm channeling James Burke, author of "Connections, and the host of the like named PBS TV show. The story starts with a boating accident, we learn a bit about "Metes and Bounds" surveys, and then onto, hopefully in a James Burke "Connected" way to the mysterious 72 Colregs "Lines of Demarcation".

Doc and Jean were in a bad boating accident, and this happen on the very last day of their "Great Loop" trip. They are friends of mine, and own the boat you see on the title page of this blog. Both are very skilled boaters, and multi engine rated pilots. They have logged over 10,000 miles on their 44' Manta power cat. The boat was heading south down the west coast of Florida, on auto pilot, about 10 miles offshore, in three foot seas. Doc had a call to nature, so he cleared port, starboard, and ahead for traffic, Jean takes the helm, and Doc goes to the head. This is where the first technical error occurred. When Doc looked port, he did not look port, and way off to the aft behind the boat. In the distance behind them, was lurking another boat, also on autopilot. 

So this is what happened. The boat behind them was a crab boat, and all of the crew was aft throwing crab traps out. What Jean sees initially, out of the corner of her left eye is a boat that is crossing her bow from the port side at an angle.

There is a huge impact, and the crab boat is impaled at amidships by the Manta's bow. Doc is catapulted out of the head into the next cabin, and Jeans slams into the helm. Both boats still have engines running, and the two boats start to turn in circles together. Jean shifts the boat into reverse, and backs off from the crab boat. One of the bows had been literally been torn off Doc and Jean's boat. The crab boat, seeing that the Manta wasn't sinking, and they were, started toward land, and shallower water. Doc scrambles up to the helm, and he is badly hurt.

A Mayday goes out to the Coast Guard, and shortly a chopper is above them. An interesting side note about the Mayday call was the Coast Guard initially was requesting their position in TD's, and it took a few extra moments to sort this out. Doc gave them the Lat/Longs.

Jean tends to Doc, and a medic is dropped from the chopper on board. He takes one look at Doc, and says "you're leaving". On the bow of the boat, Doc is strapped in, and lifted up, up, and away to St. Petersburg's Bayfront hospital.

Jean is left on the boat by herself briefly, until a Coast Guard vessel shows up. The crew gets her description of the accident, examine the boat, and decide it can be "very" slowly limped into shore. They assist Jean in getting the boat to the only available dock in the area, and this happens to be the floating town dock in Cedar Key Florida, and I mean this is the only dock in Cedar Key, and there is no other dock for 40 miles, or more in any direction. The bow was ripped off about 6 inches above the waterline, and back about three feet at the deck. A 6" wave would put water in the bow compartment. The boat could not be moved, without temporary repairs. Jean was taken home by her daughter. I orchestrated temporary repairs, and five painful days later, the boat was moved to a location where real repairs could be made. I may tell this story later, but this is not a place to be with your boat, if you have a problem.

Doc was pretty beat up, lost a lot of blood, (the boat looked like a CSI serial killer crime scene), had a bunch of things cracked, but he's a tough bird, and after a few weeks he was up and running again.

The Coast Guard does their investigation, and Jean (she was at the helm at the time) gets two citations.

The first was under rule five, Lookout: Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision (the other vessel violated the right of way, but being technically right was not much of a bonus.)

The second was under rule seven, Risk of Collision: (a) Every vessel shall use all available means appropriate to the prevailing circumstances and conditions to determine if risk of collision exists. If there is any doubt such risk shall be deemed to exist. 

(b) Proper use shall be made of radar equipment if fitted and operational, including long-range scanning to obtain early warning of risk of collision and radar plotting or equivalent systematic observation of detected objects.

That's the technical jargon, I will now translate these tickets, an a way everybody will clearly understand. Under rule 5 "Lookout", if you have been in any kind of a boating accident, you should have been looking out for other boats, so unless a bunch of Nazi frogmen in a submarine surfaces directly under your boat, you will get this citation.

Under rule 7, if you have an operational radar, and it is not on at the time of the accident, and in this case it was not, you will get a citation. If you have a radar, it should be turned on, and used while underway.

After the accident, Doc and Jean speak with a maritime lawyer, and the lawyer wants to know if the accident occurred in international waters, or inland waters from a "Rules Of The Road"  viewpoint. They ask me to find out. No problem, I will look at the track on the chartplotter, see where the accident happened, and tell you. I could see exactly on the chartplotter track where the accident happened, but now where are those pesky Lines of Demarcation? I get the paper charts out, nope, not here either, so off to Google I go for an answer.

With the exception of where the Lines of Demarcation pass across a harbor entrance, or the ilk, these lines do not appear on your charts. Look at where the red arrow is pointing, and you will see a pink dashed line and a note off to the left side saying "Colregs Demarcation Line". These are the only places on your charts where you will see them.

These lines do exist, but in a "Metes and Bounds" written format. This is a very old survey system style, that uses compass directions, distance, and descriptions to define boundaries. For example, a property boundary  might read "Beginning at a stone on the Bank of Doe River, at a point where the highway from A. to B. crosses said river (see point marked C. on Diagram 1); thence 40 degrees North of West 100 rods to a large stump; then 10 degrees North of West 90 rods; thence 15 degrees West of North 80 rods to an oak tree".... This is an overly simplified description of this system, but here is a real description of  "Lines of Demarcation".

Race Point, MA, to Watch Hill, RI.

(a) Except inside lines specifically described in this section, the 72 COLREGS shall apply on the sounds, bays, harbors, and inlets along the coast of Cape Cod and the southern coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island from Race Point to Watch Hill.

(b) A line drawn from Nobska Point Light to Tarpaulin Cove Light on the southeastern side of Naushon Island; thence from the southernmost tangent of Naushon Island to the easternmost extremity of Nashawena Island; thence from the southwestern most extremity of Nashawena Island to the easternmost extremity of Cuttyhunk Island; thence from the southwestern tangent of Cuttyhunk Island to the tower on Gooseberry Neck charted in approximate position latitude 41°29.1' N. longitude 71°02.3' W.

(c) A line drawn from Sakonnet Breakwater Light 2 tangent to the southernmost part of Sachuest Point charted in approximate position latitude 41°28.5' N. longitude 71°14.8' W.

(d) An east-west line drawn through Beavertail Light between Brenton Point and the Boston Neck shoreline.

Piece of cake, now you know, in a somewhat antiquarian way, exactly where they are for this part of the east coast.

All in all, I enjoyed this intellectual exercise. Like most of us, I knew what the Lines of Demarcation were for, but not where they actually were, and it took some level of effort to find them. I have attached the link below to a Navy site with them. So in a James Burke sort of way, we have connected the "Colregs 72 Lines of Demarcation", to "Metes and Bounds surveys", to an accident off the west coast of Florida, and learned that short of having a submarine full of Nazi frogmen surface under you, what kind of tickets you can get from this type of unfortunate event.

Despair not if you don't know exactly where the Lines of Demarcation are, because as a practical matter there are now few differences between the international, and inland rules of the road from the average boaters perspective. I was thinking about how you could add them to your chartplotter, and I think the easiest way to do it would be to build a route following the lines in your area. You could also blow the dust off your parallel ruler, and divider, and with one of those old fashioned pencil things draw them on your paper charts

Doc and Jean are currently in the Bahamas, running their radar all the time, (I have done some additional MARPA training), and the boat is now sporting a shiny new Garmin 600 AIS transponder. They are now ever more vigilant.

For those that are interested, below is the Navy site that sports the Lines of Demarcation.

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/mwv/regulations/33CFR080/33CFR80.htm

James Burke is a well known author, and was the host of the PBS/BBC TV series "Connections". His view of the history of science is most eclectic, and  demonstrates that where you start out in history is never where you end up. So if you want to know what the invention of plastics has to do with development of the Flyut, a type of Dutch cargo ship, this is the guy who knows. Here is the link to the Wikipedia page about him, and the TV show.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)