Tacks and Turns

Transcript

This is the full transcript of the podcast except some to the umms and stutters have been taken out for clarity.

Grant Headifen [00:00:10]:
Welcome, everybody, to the NauticEd micro topic podcast, where we cover one topic and one topic only. I’m Grant Headifen, the Global Director of Education for NauticEd. And today we’ve got a really cool topic that everybody can relate to. It’s called rules of the road. Don’t know why it’s called rules of the road because there’s no road on the water. But what we’ve done is brought on a NauticEd qualified American National Standards instructor. Her name is Nitzan Levy, from New York and so she’s going to go through the rules with us. She goes all over the world, sails everywhere. So she knows the rules here and there and everywhere. So, Nitzan, welcome to the show today.

Nitzan Levy [00:00:51]:
Thank you very much. I’m very glad to be here today.

Grant Headifen [00:00:55]:
Yeah, let’s. Let’s talk rules.

Nitzan Levy [00:00:56]:
I love rules.

Grant Headifen [00:00:59]:
No, we don’t like rules.

Nitzan Levy [00:01:00]:
No, no, I don’t really love rules. But the rules of the road are basically helping us understand or communicate between vessels. There’s a standard that is basically international, and we are assuming that the rest of the vessel, the rest of the vessel operators are applying by those rules as well. Of course, if we see that what we assume they know is not happening, we have the responsibility to make sure that we are avoiding collision at any cost. So the rule number one, as I like to tell my students, is do not collide. No collision allowed.

Grant Headifen [00:01:44]:
Right. And what’s interesting with that rule, I mean, it is a rule, right. You are not allowed to create a collision whether you were in the right or in the wrong. Right. So if you had. If you are, what’s. We’ll talk about stand on and rules right away, later on. Right. But if you are the person that’s supposed to hold course and the other person doesn’t know what’s going on and you collide with them, well, that’s in who’s at fault.

Nitzan Levy [00:02:12]:
It’s the fault of the person who did not avoid collision at any cost.

Grant Headifen [00:02:17]:
That’s the answer. So a lot of people don’t know that. If you know the rules, you gotta adhere them. And number one is don’t have a collision. Pretty good rule, actually, don’t you think?

Nitzan Levy [00:02:29]:
Exactly. I think it’s. It’s. First of all, it makes sense, right? You don’t want to hurt the boat, you don’t want to hurt yourself, you don’t want to hurt your crew. So you should avoid collision at any cost. That’s important.

Grant Headifen [00:02:41]:
I’m going to jump in here with a fun story. So we have virtual reality sailing on NauticEd. And every Wednesday we call Windy Wednesday, and we all go racing. So there’s people from all over the world, we go racing together. And so racing rules are exactly the same, except for a few. But in virtual reality, it knows the rules. So if you’re on port and you collide with another boat on starboard, what happens is you get a penalty. It stops your boat in virtual reality, and the person that has the right of way is the stand on vessel. Just carries straight on barrels right through your boat. Right. So you can see them coming. They’ll go right through your body, right through your boat, and they carry on going fast, but you’ve got the penalty. Your boat stops. It’s so much fun to the point where the person is kind of bad because the person that is the stand on vessel won’t avoid collision. They just go right through. So it’s a weird getting a boat going right through your body. It’s pretty weird, but it’s fun anyway. Right?

Nitzan Levy [00:03:55]:
So carry on just because you threw in there the right of way. This is terminology that we used to use in the past, someone who has the right of way and someone who needs to give the right of way. And we are steering away from that terminology just to make sure. Again, we’re talking about responsibility. So there’s a stand on vessel and there’s a giveaway vessel. And it’s very important that we use that terminology because as soon as someone is thinking, as in a road, in a real road, when you’re driving in traffic, that they have the right of the way. A lot of times that makes them feel entitled, and they would not make any action in order to avoid the collision. So this is, again, we’re talking about stand on vessel and give way vessel, and the road is. The right of the road is basically. Is a given thing. It’s not something that you own or entitled to get.

Grant Headifen [00:04:55]:
Yeah, perfect explanation. And so because a lot of people say, well, what? You know, why has it changed? Right. And really it is if you’re the stand on vessel, you are supposed to stand on until. Right. Keep maintaining your course until.

Nitzan Levy [00:05:14]:
Yeah.

Grant Headifen [00:05:15]:
Right. And so it should be. It should be called stand on until in the giveaway vessel. All right, let’s go.

Nitzan Levy [00:05:23]:
Rule number two, in my opinion, is the vessel that has less maneuverability would be the stand on vessel. Again, it makes sense. You see a vessel like, let’s say, a kayak or a paddle border. And of course, even when you’re sailing, you have a lot more maneuverability than that type of vessel, then you should give them way, right?

Grant Headifen [00:05:48]:
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, if you look through the rules, I’ve looked through the rules dozens of times, and I cannot find where it says a kayak has rules rights or is stand on or give way over another vessel. So. So that rule in particular is exactly right. So. And it comes from rule number one. If you can’t move out of the way and the other guy can, well, the other guy should. Right. So sailboats and paddleboards and kayaks are in that same class, even though they’re not necessarily driven by sail.

Nitzan Levy [00:06:24]:
Right. Another application of avoid collision should be given when we’re in conditions that we’re unsure about. So maybe it’s foggy, maybe it’s raining heavy and we don’t have good visibility. Maybe the sea state is too crazy. In these situations. We also not, first thing, we’re supposed to be very prudent with our vessel operation. We need to go slower than we usually go, and we need to do everything in order to keep the vessel safe and to avoid collision. So this is another thing we need to make sure that we’re paying attention to.

Grant Headifen [00:07:05]:
Right. So, yeah, that’s, again, back to rule number one. Right. So I think it does say in the rules there somewhere is like, if in doubt, then.

Nitzan Levy [00:07:13]:
Exactly. And we’ll talk about if in doubt a bit later when we talk about sailboat rules of the road. But now I would like to move on to another principle, basic principle. That again, to me, it’s just like a make sense, no brainer. You must maintain a lookout. How would you know if you are stand on or give way? If you don’t have a lookout? You need to make sure you have eyes on the road. So either you yourself can see everything or you use your crew. And sometimes, you know the vessel is healing and the sail is covering your view. So you make sure that one of your crew either crawls under the sails and tell you what’s the situation in terms of both traffic or someone could even stand on the bow and call for distances, especially for those of you are racing. When you get close to a start line or a mark, you want to make sure you know what distance you’re keeping from your opponent.

Grant Headifen [00:08:19]:
Exactly. I’ve got a silly story on this one. It’s when I was a Hodl greenhorn. So we’re racing, and I was that guy told to go stand on the bow. And just the captain said to me, go stand on the bow and call out starboard if any boat is coming at us. Okay, that’s a good idea. I didn’t know what starboard was. I didn’t know what it meant. I just went up to the front and pulled out starboard, and I knew starboard was right. Right side of the boat. That’s all I knew. Well, there’s a boat coming at us, and he’s going to pass us on the left side of the boat. So I call out port, when we were actually on starboard. But I was thinking that I should tell the boat to go to the port side of the boat. But no, that’s not.

Nitzan Levy [00:09:01]:
You should be advised, you report.

Grant Headifen [00:09:05]:
So, yeah, so that’s an embarrassing story, but I can blame it on being a complete greenhorn.

Nitzan Levy [00:09:12]:
But it’s fine. We’re here to own our embarrassing stories.

Grant Headifen [00:09:16]:
Well, you learn from your mistakes. Okay, exactly.

Nitzan Levy [00:09:19]:
Hopefully, you don’t do the same mistake twice.

Grant Headifen [00:09:21]:
Yeah. And include it and look out. You know what it says. The rules do say if your boat is fitted with a radar, it must be on, right?

Nitzan Levy [00:09:30]:
Right. That’s another way of maintaining a lookout. Another thing to remember that a lot of people forget to. When you are on a sailboat, once you turn on the engine, even if your sails are on, you are considered a power vessel. So the rules of the road that apply to power vessels are now applying you. You’re not a sailboat just because you have sails. And sometimes you can sail. You’re only a sailboat when you’re using the wind as your only propulsion.

Grant Headifen [00:10:03]:
Right. And I think the rules say when machinery is not being operated. So now it could be machinery being operated if the engine’s on. You know that you need to be careful of that because a lot of people will say, okay, well, I turned my engines off to gain, to become the stand on vessel because I just turned my engines off. No, that doesn’t work. You got into the situation as a power boat, so you can’t just turn your engines off and say, I’m a sailboat now. So I’m on the stand on vessel. That ain’t gonna work. It’s not gonna fly in the courtroom. In actual fact. Look, here’s where it all comes down to, right. You could be tricky and start thinking about that. Right? When it comes down to, if you’re gonna start thinking about that kind of philosophy, how are you gonna get away with it in the courtroom? Right? So let’s say it’s just a matter really bad, and you’ve got, you know, nasty lawyer on. On their side, and you’ve got a grumpy judge, you ain’t gonna fare well when you try to pull tricks like that. Right. So you have got to operate strictly to the rules and do the best and have the lookout, and you can put your right hand up and say, yes, judge, I have my hand up. I was on lookout. That boat was going to clear me, and they made a last minute turn into me. There was nothing I could do. And you have to be able to say that in the courtroom in order to get away with having rights, with being standoff, otherwise you’re going to lose.

Nitzan Levy [00:11:45]:
Right. And another thing I would like to touch that is relating to what you just said. Many sailors, especially when they only start sailing and they’re using boats, maybe they’re now starting to use a boat they never used before. A lot of times, because they’re unfamiliar with their vessel speed and maneuverability, they would get scared of a ferry that is like a mile away from them. And I say, maintain your speed and course. And even if you get close, make sure not to make those, like, wishy washy maneuvers, because what happens is that you’re miscommunicating to the other vessel, what you’re doing. You’re confusing the other vessel. As I said at the beginning, there is a basic assumption that all people on the water know the rules of the road. Of course we know that. Not everyone knows, but we’re still allowed to assume that the other vessel, especially if we’re talking about bigger vessels, that they know the rules of the road, and we are expected to act the same way that the other operator is expecting us to act. So if you are the stand on vessel, stay stand on until you see that there’s no but it doesn’t need to be a mile away. It needs to be when you’re really in a close quarter situation and you see that you will not have time to make a maneuver a bit later.

Grant Headifen [00:13:11]:
Yeah. And, you know, there’s nothing wrong. Like a ferry’s a mile away. You can, if you’re the stand on vessel, you can make a obvious turn right to avoid that ferry, even though you have, you know, you either stand on vessel you have right away, but making a turn early and obvious, actually, that’s in the rules as well. It says early and obvious.

Nitzan Levy [00:13:37]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:13:38]:
You’re allowed to do that. Stand on doesn’t mean continue to hold your course. You know, if there’s a vessel that’s.

Nitzan Levy [00:13:44]:
Right, and I’ll tell you, sometimes it becomes sticky. We’re sailing in the New York harbor. We’re racing here, and we have a lot of big ferries. The Staten island ferry, which is very monstro. Monastic. I don’t know how to say that word.

Grant Headifen [00:14:00]:
Monstrosity.

Nitzan Levy [00:14:01]:
Monstrosity. Yeah. So when she’s coming a lot of times and she’s cutting the fleet, she would go loud with the five horns. And this is something we really need to pay attention to because some ferries, the smaller ferries, they can adjust their coast, their course easily. But bigger ferries, I mean, the Staten island ferry is basically the size of a container ship, a small container ship. Those vessels are very unmanoeuvrable. And this is something also to remember. The fact that they’re motorized doesn’t make them maneuverable more than a sailboat.

Grant Headifen [00:14:36]:
Back to rule number one. Right.

Nitzan Levy [00:14:38]:
Exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:14:39]:
Rule number zero is don’t get killed and run over and squash like a bug by a big.

Nitzan Levy [00:14:45]:
Exactly. And another thing that is, in a principle like before, we dive into the different things, the different rules, the breakdown is overtaking. So when you’re overtaking a vessel, what would you imagine would be the situation? Who has more visibility in that sense?

Grant Headifen [00:15:07]:
Yeah. Well, you’re sneaking up on them, right. So you can see them. Maybe they can’t see you.

Nitzan Levy [00:15:12]:
And on a tailbone, we don’t have those mirrors like we have in a car. So we definitely, unless we turn our head, we definitely can’t see them.

Grant Headifen [00:15:20]:
Yep. Yep. So, and the other part of it is that if you’re overtaking, well, it’s probably obvious that you’ve got more maneuverability. So that’s your rule number two, whether.

Nitzan Levy [00:15:33]:
You want to take them on port or take them on starboard.

Grant Headifen [00:15:36]:
Yeah, yeah. So that definitely is in the rules. Overtaking vessels. If you are overtaking another vessel, you must give way.

Nitzan Levy [00:15:46]:
Exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:15:47]:
And that’s clear in the rules. And that doesn’t matter if you’re a sailboat overtaking a powerboat.

Nitzan Levy [00:15:55]:
Powerboat. Right.

Grant Headifen [00:15:56]:
You are still overtaking. And so you, the sailboat must give way to the power boat, which not a lot of people know that.

Nitzan Levy [00:16:05]:
Correct. All right, so let’s talk a little bit now that we went on the, you know, the big principles, let’s talk a little bit about the sailing rules of the road. So rules of the road as pertaining for sailboats. So the first one would be opposite tacks. So we have a sailboat that is on starboard tack and a sailboat that is on port tack. And as Grant’s previous captain told him to say, starboard, starboard.

Grant Headifen [00:16:41]:
Somebody else.

Nitzan Levy [00:16:43]:
Starboard is the stand on vessel. Port is the giveaway vessel. There is nothing to do about maneuverability. It’s not that the vessel on port side is more maneuverable. It’s just they had to make a decision. It needed to be a binary decision.

Grant Headifen [00:17:00]:
Actually, I did research the history on that one.

Nitzan Levy [00:17:02]:
Okay.

Grant Headifen [00:17:03]:
Yeah.

Nitzan Levy [00:17:04]:
Because the starboard had the starboard on the side.

Grant Headifen [00:17:07]:
Yeah, the steering board. The steering board on the right side of the boat. And the port. The boat would come up to the port on the. So the steering board was on the right side of the boat. So if the boat was heeling over, that steering board was less in the water, and so it had less maneuverability when the wind was on the steerboard side of the boat. Now, this is way, way, way back. So you can forget that. It just comes down to convention. As you said, they had to make a decision, you know, these days, because the rudders in the middle of boat doesn’t matter, but it just is. Right? It’s rules. Yeah.

Nitzan Levy [00:17:54]:
I actually like that story and I’ll remember to use it in the future.

Grant Headifen [00:17:58]:
Yeah. I never checked it out on snoops. You know.com. it sounds really good.

Nitzan Levy [00:18:05]:
Yeah, it sounds really good. By the way, why don’t you tell us, Grant, how we determine what’s the vessel’s tack before we move forward?

Grant Headifen [00:18:15]:
Oh, yeah. No, I don’t know that one. No.

Nitzan Levy [00:18:18]:
So I’m testing the tester.

Grant Headifen [00:18:22]:
Yeah. Well, it goes back to that same story from that race. So starboard means the wind is coming from the right side of your boat off your starboard. Imagine in your head winds coming from the right side of your boat, the boom, and the sails are going to be out on the left side of the boat or the port side of the boat. Right. So if the wind’s coming from the right side of the boat, you have. I’m not going to use the word right of way, but we’re going to stand on. You stand on just doesn’t rhyme. But that’s. That’s, um, how you determine that. Now, it gets a wee bit tricky. And there’s lots of rules around this. Like what if you’re going downwind and the boom’s on the right side, but the jibs on the left? Well, doing wing on wingdeze on wing, the rules say whichever side your largest sail is. So let’s say you have your main sail down and you have the jib up, but it’s on your port. Well, on your port side, but wind’s coming from your right, so you’re still unstable there. Okay, let’s. Let’s carry on.

Nitzan Levy [00:19:26]:
Two vessels on the same tack. The vessel to leeward is the stand on. Vessel. The vessel to windward, supposedly have more maneuverability.

Grant Headifen [00:19:36]:
There is a reason for that. And so imagine the lewd vessel, one that’s further downwind, is coming, you know, sort of towards you, and you’re both on the same tank. So put that in your brain. Let’s say the one that is further downwind. They are on a close haul. So. Meaning they. They’ve only got one way to turn. So they can only turn downwind.

Nitzan Levy [00:20:00]:
Exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:20:01]:
Right. They don’t have an option to turn upwind without tacking. Right?

Nitzan Levy [00:20:06]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:20:06]:
Or stalling. So that boat on the leeward side. The leeward side has only one direction to turn, so they are less maneuverable. The one that’s further upwind on an incoming collision course. Well, they can turn to the left. They can turn to the right of. They can go in front of the boat. They can round up a little bit. They can turn and scoot in behind the boat. So they have more maneuverability. So leeward boat is stand on boat for that reason only has. It has less maneuverability.

Nitzan Levy [00:20:38]:
Right?

Grant Headifen [00:20:39]:
Yep.

Nitzan Levy [00:20:40]:
Grant, you want to take a break? I think your minute is coming up.

Grant Headifen [00:20:43]:
Oh, yeah. So we have to take a break because I have to take a cake out of the oven.

Nitzan Levy [00:20:47]:
Yeah.

Grant Headifen [00:20:52]:
All right, I’m back. And that cake is looking amazing. Put the knife into it. No ingredients came out with a knife, so that means it’s perfectly cooked.

Nitzan Levy [00:21:02]:
Okay, perfect. What cake did you make?

Grant Headifen [00:21:04]:
I’m making a coconut cream cake.

Nitzan Levy [00:21:06]:
Oh, coconut cream, you said. Yeah.

Grant Headifen [00:21:08]:
My daughter’s birthday.

Nitzan Levy [00:21:09]:
Yeah.

Grant Headifen [00:21:11]:
Alrighty. Back to. Back to rules.

Nitzan Levy [00:21:15]:
Yes.

Grant Headifen [00:21:17]:
Turn off the thing in here. Okay. Back to rules. So, yeah, all those rules really come from maneuverability.

Nitzan Levy [00:21:26]:
And again, if you’re sailing, you’re doing a race, and you see a vessel coming ahead of you, and they have their spinnaker up, and it’s hard for you to determine which. Which tack they’re on. The rule is just to give way, you know, because you need. You’re supposed to avoid collision, any cost, and you’re supposed to give way in the case you think there might be collision. So if you’re unsure, just change your course in order to avoid collision. And I think that’s it for sailboats. Right? Did I cover?

Grant Headifen [00:21:58]:
Yeah, pretty much. And that rule that you just talked about, that comes from the if in doubt rule, right?

Nitzan Levy [00:22:04]:
Right. If in doubt. Exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:22:05]:
And look, here’s where I learned the rules from a guy in Thailand, an instructor in Thailand. And we went out for a while, and he was teaching a class, and I was just sitting in on it. And he did an amazing job of teaching the philosophy. Exactly. Kind of what I was alluding to throughout my talk here is that the rules are designed around logic, but also the design, really interesting, around the responsibility of the captain. So imagine on the road, you know, we don’t have. It’s not so much a responsibility stuff. You can’t go as fast as you like. Right. You can’t do the things that you would kind of want to do as a teenager on the road. And so there are very specific rules on the road. You can’t go any faster than this. You can’t go any slower than this. Sometimes you must be in the right hand lane. You must be in the left hand lane. Those rules are designed, you know, for everybody and to takes away a lot of responsibility because the rules take over the responsibility when you get on the ocean. What they’ve done is put the responsibility to the captain. But here’s part of the responsibility, is that you have to know the rules. And so if you don’t know the rules, you should not be captain. Right. And that was made very clear to me by Tim in Thailand. It was so cool that. Okay. Yeah. I’ve been given a responsibility. I’m not told to how fast I can go. It just says, go a safe speed. Right. Make an early and obvious turn. Well, how far is early? They don’t define what how early is. They don’t.

Nitzan Levy [00:23:42]:
And also make sure that you’re noticeable because I’ve seen a lot of jet skis going without lights at night, which is very scary.

Grant Headifen [00:23:50]:
Yep. No, so that’s. That’s not responsible. Right.

Nitzan Levy [00:23:54]:
Exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:23:55]:
Irresponsible thing. Therefore, you shouldn’t be doing that in an obvious turn. What was that, 20 degrees, 30 degrees? No, they don’t say that in the rules. So here’s the takeaway. You, as the captain of a sailboat, have been given the responsibility, and therefore you must take the responsibility by knowing the rules. Pretty simple. And it’s awesome. It’s really cool. I love it. All right.

Nitzan Levy [00:24:20]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:24:20]:
That was good enough for sailboats. Let’s. Let’s move on to power. How does a power move anyway? I don’t even know how they move through the water.

Nitzan Levy [00:24:30]:
Well, they have that wheel, you know, and it goes like a car. And so let’s talk the first situation where we’re going head to head, two power vessels going head to head. So the rule says, similar to what the rules on the real world, the real road say, is that each vessel steers to its starboard. So the vessels are passing on each other, port to port. The left side of the boat to the other left side of the boat that is coming opposite direction.

Grant Headifen [00:25:00]:
Yeah. Wait a minute. I’m from New Zealand. That would be a disaster on the car. It’s not like the cars because we’ll confuse all our international clients.

Nitzan Levy [00:25:14]:
Okay, so remember, port to port, turn to the right.

Grant Headifen [00:25:19]:
Turn right.

Nitzan Levy [00:25:20]:
Yeah, turn to right. Exactly. The next rule would be a risk of collision when vessels are going either perpendicularly to each other or you see that the angle is getting. The angle is staying the same angle, but the distance is decreasing. In that event, the stand on vessel is the vessel that you see on your starboard side. To your starboard.

Grant Headifen [00:25:51]:
Yeah. And I’ve got a mnemonic. Not a mnemonic, but a way to memorize that. So, in a car, and this is international, red means stop and green means go. Right. So if you see another vessel and.

Nitzan Levy [00:26:08]:
You see their red side and you.

Grant Headifen [00:26:09]:
See the red first time, you see the red light. Daytime, you see the red light. If it’s at night, you see their red light. So that’s stop. Right? Stop means, you know, you give way. You got to do that. Now, in the daytime, you can’t see a red light, but you still need to take the responsibility of knowing which side of the boat all over the world should have a red light on it. And it’s on the port. And that’s really easy to remember because I love drinking a port wine from Portugal. So is there any red port left is my mnemonic that I always repeat to myself.

Nitzan Levy [00:26:43]:
And then port and left have four letters while starred and right. Who knows how many letters are.

Grant Headifen [00:26:53]:
Related to drinking booze? But only on shore.

Nitzan Levy [00:26:56]:
Only on shore, we don’t drink.

Grant Headifen [00:26:59]:
Is there any red port left? So red is on the port of the side of the boat is the left side of the boat. So if I project myself onto the other boat for a second, I’m looking at a boat, I project myself onto them. They’re going that way. And which side is the red light on? Okay, it’s on that side. I’m seeing that side of the red light on their boat. Therefore, I must give way. Okay, let’s. Let’s carry on. So, head to head, we’ve got stand on vessel power, red side of the boat.

Nitzan Levy [00:27:28]:
Right? And if you make that decision to give way, I mean, you know that you’re supposed to make that decision like we mentioned before, and I’ll mention it again because they can’t stress it enough, make a distinct movement, something that would be recognizable from afar in darkness, that they will see that you’re actually going in a direction that is not headed straight into their bowden.

Grant Headifen [00:27:54]:
Yeah. Early and obvious right now. It brings up a really good point. A really incredible tool that’s available to everybody these days. It’s really inexpensive. We just finished a podcast on it. It’s AI’s.

Nitzan Levy [00:28:06]:
Yeah. Right.

Grant Headifen [00:28:07]:
So that will tell you what your, the other vessel is doing, their heading. But also what it does is it gives you CPA closest point of approach. Meaning if the CPA is zero, that’s really bad. Right. That means you’re going to hit. If the CPA is a mile, that’s cool. So it will tell you how far your boat will be away from that boat at its closest. Your. The closest points of where your boats are going to get. That’s such a cool device. And it even gives you also the TCPA, which the time of closest point of approach. So it might say in five minutes.

Nitzan Levy [00:28:49]:
You’Re going based on your speed and the other vessel speed to tell you that calculation. Yeah.

Grant Headifen [00:28:55]:
Right. And it’s real time. So if you turn, those two numbers will change. So AI’s. It’s a fantastic technology. Everybody should have an AI’s on your boat. You can see what’s going on with other boats as long as they have a is on their boat.

Nitzan Levy [00:29:13]:
And if you don’t have an AI’s on your boat for whatever reason. Although now it’s becoming a requirement for long distance races more and more across the country and definitely when you go internationally. But there’s a cute app, it’s called marine traffic. And through marine traffic, you can basically zoom into the area where you at, and it will show you all the vessels around you. And that, again, is a real time information that could help you make your decision.

Grant Headifen [00:29:40]:
Yeah, and. But be aware, if you don’t have an AI’s, the other guys can’t necessarily see you.

Nitzan Levy [00:29:48]:
You. Exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:29:50]:
You should have what’s called a transponding and receiving. AI’s. The type C is just receiving. Type B is transponding and receiving. So if you can afford it, it’s not expensive, but get yourself a type B AI’s system on your boat and again, just comes back to responsibility. Right. You know?

Nitzan Levy [00:30:08]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:30:08]:
If you can afford one, why wouldn’t you do that?

Nitzan Levy [00:30:11]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:30:12]:
Right. Okay, let’s move on.

Nitzan Levy [00:30:14]:
Two more things I would like to talk about. So if you’re taking the rules of the road, the rules of navigation in Nautica towards the end of the course, you’ll have a list of the order of give way. So basically, it would start with vessel that has the least maneuverability and will end with the vessel that has the highest maneuverability. So just quickly, I will mention the overtaking. Vessel has the least maneuverability. Again, they don’t see anything behind them. A vessel that is not under command is next in turn, not under command.

Grant Headifen [00:30:51]:
It needs a lot of definition for a lot of people. Right. So what it also refers to as a boat that’s completely broken and their rudder is shot and they’re just barreling on through.

Nitzan Levy [00:31:00]:
Exactly. Exactly. You can’t maneuver your boat. Your engine doesn’t start the next category restricted with your maneuverability.

Grant Headifen [00:31:09]:
Well, also there’s in sea lanes and things like that. Some boats are not allowed to go outside the sea lane or whatever. So they’re also restricting their maneuverability. And then you’re getting into also, like, the river rules versus open ocean rules. Right. Inland rules, so.

Nitzan Levy [00:31:22]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:31:23]:
But, yeah, definitely restricted in the maneuverability. So if you’re, you’re trying to force a container ship out of the way, which, you know, some people think that sailboats have rules. Rights over everybody. That’s not true. Okay, carry on.

Nitzan Levy [00:31:37]:
Yeah. The next in line would be constrained by draft. So my draft is just too deep. And the depth over there is, my draft is 7ft. The depth over there is five. Definitely. I’m constrained by my draft, so I can’t go there. How do you communicate that? Because other vessels don’t see your draft.

Grant Headifen [00:31:58]:
Right. It can be kind of obvious, though, because it’s really written around bigger vessels. Right. So you’ve got a giant, big vessel navigating in a narrow waterway. Obviously, they’re constrained by draft because they’re very deep. So because, you know, like, if you, if you meet, if you’re a sailboat and you meet a giant container ship out in the middle of the ocean, I. And you’re a sailboat, technically, you have, you are the stand on vessel. So now don’t try and force that. Make an early and obvious change to get out of the way. But so the constrained by draft, what that does is that brings that big vessel, if it comes close to land, now they’re constrained by draft. So now you, the sailboat do have to give way.

Nitzan Levy [00:32:42]:
Yeah, but a sailboat should give way to a container ship anyway. It’s a much bigger vessel. It’s usually, especially in open waters, it’s operated on autopilot. You do not want to cross that boat.

Grant Headifen [00:32:55]:
Nope.

Nitzan Levy [00:32:55]:
As you know, you can do it in one shot because they’re not going to even honk at you. It will just, it will just go over you and not even know that they did. So. So be aware of those container ships.

Grant Headifen [00:33:07]:
Oh, yeah.

Nitzan Levy [00:33:07]:
A lot of experience with that. Not that I’ve been in a collision like that. It’s just that seeing them is scary.

Grant Headifen [00:33:14]:
Have you ever been honked at five times by a big boat?

Nitzan Levy [00:33:17]:
No, I have, but did get honked by a Staten island ferry over reactive operator. So, yeah, it was my early days.

Grant Headifen [00:33:29]:
When I was a young greenhorn as well, when I was sailing a little dinghy. And I didn’t, I knew I was going to miss this big boat, but I didn’t take into account that the biggest boat was so big that they would take my win. Yeah, that killed my maneuverability.

Nitzan Levy [00:33:44]:
That’s true.

Grant Headifen [00:33:45]:
And I couldn’t pull out the rules saying I’m restricting ability to maneuver. I was going to get squashed. So just stay away from big.

Nitzan Levy [00:33:53]:
Big, exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:33:54]:
Big boats.

Nitzan Levy [00:33:55]:
Another vessel that you want to stay away from is fishing with restricted maneuverability. Fishing or trawling. A lot of times they’ll have equipment, uh, in the water like nets. You definitely don’t want to get out over that because it’s going to get caught in your propeller and then you’re not in a good situation.

Grant Headifen [00:34:18]:
Right. And the rules say that they have more rights of you.

Nitzan Levy [00:34:21]:
Exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:34:22]:
They are the stand on vessel. Um, so, yeah, you have to stay out of the way, but do stay out of the way. And including other vessels being towed.

Nitzan Levy [00:34:31]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:34:31]:
One time we were going along and there was a boat going along, and I thought, okay, well, I’ll easily go behind that one. But there was another boat behind that one. I thought, well, I’ll easily make in front of that one. Well, guess what? One in front was towing the one behind.

Nitzan Levy [00:34:45]:
Oh, wow.

Grant Headifen [00:34:46]:
Yeah. And the, the line, it was so long, and it was so heavy that it was in the water, so I couldn’t see it. So it wasn’t until I got closer.

Nitzan Levy [00:34:55]:
And then I realized the correct lights.

Grant Headifen [00:34:57]:
There were no lights. It was daytime. I was there, and so I got closer and was able to take away. But, you know, hey, what if I, what if I wasn’t paying attention? What if I wasn’t making a good lookout?

Nitzan Levy [00:35:09]:
So next, the next would be sailboats, which we discussed already in depth. After that would be any power vessel not too big that could easily get maneuvered.

Grant Headifen [00:35:23]:
We’re talking about the rules, right. They would have to give way to you right. But you should not expect them to do that. Just my favorite word in sailing is prudence. Right. It’s just prudence.

Nitzan Levy [00:35:35]:
Yeah. And the last but not least, the vessel that needs to give way to all other vessels that we mentioned is seaplane. Seaplane. Yeah. We don’t see a lot of them, actually, here in New York. We see them quite often on the East river, maybe in other parts of the world or the country that you’re sailing. You haven’t seen them, but they are highly maneuverable, because guess what? When they can’t maneuver at sea, what do they do? They just ascend. So, yeah.

Grant Headifen [00:36:05]:
And then, of course, everybody asked, well, what if it’s a plane that’s coming in, you know, for an emergency landing? Okay, well, then that goes to n not a command. The captain doesn’t have the ability to command the vessel to do what it needs to do.

Nitzan Levy [00:36:18]:
Right.

Grant Headifen [00:36:20]:
Anyway, seaplanes are at the last of the list. So, you know what’s really interesting is sailboats are way down the list. Sailboats have to give way to a lot of boats, so know the rules.

Nitzan Levy [00:36:31]:
And a lot of times I have first timers, sailors who come on the boat, and I start talking about rules of the road. They say, oh, aren’t we the stand on vessel and everybody else? And I said, no, not at all. Yeah, exactly.

Grant Headifen [00:36:48]:
Right. So that’s it for today. Nitzan, thanks so much. So Nitzan is an instructor. She’s out of New York. So if you want to learn to sail, if you just want to do your assessment for your international sailing license, Nitzan has. I mean, how many, you’ve got five star reviews on your site. It’s unbelievable. If you look at NauticEd and then look at. Find Netsan. Look, just look at the reviews. Everybody loves her. She’s fantastic. So go get your assessment.

Nitzan Levy [00:37:20]:
I didn’t pay them.

Grant Headifen [00:37:22]:
Did you pay them to say that?

Nitzan Levy [00:37:23]:
I didn’t pay them.

Grant Headifen [00:37:24]:
Maybe a little bit. So, yeah. Anyway, go use Nitzan. She’s amazing, and she’s a character. She’s fun to talk to. All right, thanks so much, Nitzan.

Nitzan Levy [00:37:34]:
Okay, bye. Thank you.