Things that go bump in the night!
Marita3
Mark & Helen Syrett
Fri 9 Nov 2012 06:24
On Wednesday night Mark was asleep in the forecabin with Helen on watch in the the pitch dark--no moon. There was a sudden bang on the bow and then a series of bumps as whatever it was ran down the length of the boat. Mark was awaken from his slumbers and shot vertically out of the bunk and Helen looked desperately to see if there was damage and to see what caused it. Neither were found although we think it was a fishing buoy and vertical marker.
Last night something else ran down the side of the boat---again no damage and most importantly nothing around the prop.
There is a lot of debris in the Java sea and there have been a lot of fishing boats and Camelot were nearly mown down by one which had not seen her---the boats have so much deck lighting it makes it difficult for them to see outside their own sphere. No damage to Camelot but they tore their spinnaker from head to toe in the anti collision manoeuvres.
We also had an altercation with a 250 foot coastal boat which AIS identified as a threat with a CPA (closest point of approach)of under a quarter of a mile in twenty minutes. We called him up on the radio when he was 6 miles away to ask whether he was going to pass behind or in front of us. We were running downwind with the jib poled out and he was coming at right angles to our starboard beam. All he had to do was turn to port and pass behind us. To cut a long story short during which time he went to starboard and then to port and then straight at us (CPA 500 feet) he turned hard to starboard at the last moment and passed across our bows. All this time Mark was on the radio to him trying to get some sense out of him but the skipper sounded very uncertain and inexperienced and got into a right flap including shining a searchlight onto us, despite the fact that we had already put a light onto our sails to make us even more visible. No harm done but thank goodness for AIS---nobody should go to sea without it (both transponding and receiving).
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