Atlantic Crossing - Ships that pass in the night - we hope

Stargazer of Southampton
Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)
Tue 4 Jan 2011 10:56
04:01.11, 13:26.47N 38:44.93W
 
Very dark again last night - no moon, no stars - just warm and cloudy.  Another (or the same) floodlit factory fishing ship appeared again straight ahead of us at pretty much the same time as yesterday about ten thirty at night.  It was impossible to see which way he was moving as the floodlights obscured any other lights and he was tracking in straight toward us. .. . .. . . the VHF conversation went like this. . . . .
 
Me:  Ship at position blah North, blah West, this is Yacht Stargazer, over.
 
Me (again):  Ship at position blah North blah West, this is Yacht Stargazer, over.
 
Someone else: Stargazer this is Wild Rose, we are near the position you stated
 
Me:  I am looking at a large floodlit vessel 4 miles on our port bow are you that ship and,  can you see a sailing yacht
 
Wild Rose: I am a sailing yacht, I have no lights on at all.
 
Me: . . .errrmm. .. .OK, so you are not the Ship that I am trying to avoid that is floodlit
 
Wild Rose:   We're a yacht but we are sailing nearby
 
Me: OK Thanks for your help, we will continue to take action to avoid the ship
 
. . . About 10 minutes later. . . .. . . ..
 
Wild Rose: Stargazer, Stargazer,  this is Wild Rose, we can now see a ship and a yacht near to it - we assume you are the yacht and can confirm that we are not the ship that you are trying to avoid
 
???? Very confusing, we never did hear from the ship itself, probably too busy fishing - but we were baffled as to why a yacht with no lights should think we could mistake them for a floodlit ship.  think they were just paranoid of people running into them as they had no lights on - good idea would be to put some on I suppose.
 
 
Four dead flying fish had to be removed from the decks this morning, poor flying fish.