Who has the Right Of Way

[Dave R]

Originally Posted by Descant

Regardless of ROW, both captains could likely have made modest course changes and eliminated any ROW issue.

This sounds like a good idea, but it's not what you are supposed to do and can make matters worse. The stand-on vessel is supposed to maintain course and speed unless it cannot safely do so. When I am operating the give-way vessel, I am counting on the the stand-on captain to maintain course and speed and I will adjust my course and/or speed to avoid a collision course. If the stand-on captain does the same thing, they can easily put us back on a collision course.

I recently put a Garmin Fantom 24" radar on my boat and has a slick feature that automatically paints targets on the screen that are moving toward me a different color than targets that are moving away from me. It's super handy for keeping track of boats in a busy area, especially in poor visibility conditions. It's MUCH easier and ten times faster to ascertain what's going on around me with it than my old radar was. If you are in the market for radar, it's worth a look.