Here's a real sea story...
It happened one lousy day (daytime) of bad weather in the middle of
the Atlantic on our way from the Gibraltar Straits to Norfolk, VA in
a Navy destroyer. The seas were kicking some 12-15 feet, winds about
45 knots, visibility good at about 5 miles, no precipitation.
Of course, aboard a US Navy ship, "proper" lookouts are posted (we
had five posted) with sound powered 'phones connected to the bridge
watch. The lookouts were spelled every 30 minutes so they wouldn't
get too tired.
CIC (Combat Information Center -- that place you see in the WW II
movies with the dark room and plots of targets on vertical plexiglas
charts and all the radar screens and stuff) sent up information on a
new strong radar contact about 5 miles off our starboard bow, moving
slowly. The lookouts were alerted. They saw nothing. Nobody could
see anything, and a "strong" target would normally indicate a large
ship. The "skunk" drew closer and closer...
To make a long story short, the radar target closed on the same
bearing, CIC got more and more intense with its warnings, and
finally, as the mystery target came close aboard and no one could see
ANYTING, the CIC Watch Officer (the guy in charge of CIC) scrambled
up to the bridge to see for himself. Being a sailor, he looked for a
sailboat. And there WAS ONE! Right on our starboard beam, 200 feet
away, was a 30 ft. sailboat under bare poles. We were able to talk
to them (via loud hailer, they didn't have a radio on and didn't
understand international light signals). They weren't worried about
possible collision (knew we had radar), they were a wooden boat (this
happened in 1965), they had no source of energy for a radar. We
didn't ask if they had a radar reflector, but I'll bet they did.
This taught me: Use ALL the resources you have on board to determine
the situation around you (Including CIC)!
Thanks for listening...
Bill
Here's a real sea story...
It happened one lousy day (daytime) of bad weather in the middle of
the Atlantic on our way from the Gibraltar Straits to Norfolk, VA in
a Navy destroyer. The seas were kicking some 12-15 feet, winds about
45 knots, visibility good at about 5 miles, no precipitation.
Of course, aboard a US Navy ship, "proper" lookouts are posted (we
had five posted) with sound powered 'phones connected to the bridge
watch. The lookouts were spelled every 30 minutes so they wouldn't
get too tired.
CIC (Combat Information Center -- that place you see in the WW II
movies with the dark room and plots of targets on vertical plexiglas
charts and all the radar screens and stuff) sent up information on a
new strong radar contact about 5 miles off our starboard bow, moving
slowly. The lookouts were alerted. They saw nothing. Nobody could
see anything, and a "strong" target would normally indicate a large
ship. The "skunk" drew closer and closer...
To make a long story short, the radar target closed on the same
bearing, CIC got more and more intense with its warnings, and
finally, as the mystery target came close aboard and no one could see
ANYTING, the CIC Watch Officer (the guy in charge of CIC) scrambled
up to the bridge to see for himself. Being a sailor, he looked for a
sailboat. And there WAS ONE! Right on our starboard beam, 200 feet
away, was a 30 ft. sailboat under bare poles. We were able to talk
to them (via loud hailer, they didn't have a radio on and didn't
understand international light signals). They weren't worried about
possible collision (knew we had radar), they were a wooden boat (this
happened in 1965), they had no source of energy for a radar. We
didn't ask if they had a radar reflector, but I'll bet they did.
This taught me: Use ALL the resources you have on board to determine
the situation around you (Including CIC)!
Thanks for listening...
Bill
