1400 foot container ship in the fog!!!!!

Kracker Jack

Kracker Jack

God
IMAG0494-1.jpg

This is what a 1400 foot Mersk ship looks like 150 yards off the stern of the boat. The picture does the situation no justice!!!! There was about a 200 yard visibility. Fog horns make an Erie noise!!! I took this picture after getting directly off his bow!!!!
IMAG0495-1.jpg

Shot number 2 is way close for comfort.
 
as you can see in the first shot that Stretch 25 was reeled in really really fast. The lure actually popped out of the water and almost hit me in the face!! lol!!! We heard him blowing his fog horn but its safer to standby and get visual before you move. Alot of guys make the mistake of trying to move with no visual and almost running up on him. The deck looked like florocarbon spaggetti after we reeled in the lines. lol!
 
In a word..... RADAR!

You never need it until that one time... then it saves your life.

Where RW, Willy and I fish (Sandy Hook area) we have ships that size coming and going all the time from Port Elizabeth, Port Newark and all the ports on the Hudson river.

Being out in a fog like that, in that area, without radar is simply suicide.

Glad you avoided him. That guys screws would have chewed you and your boat up into little pieces in less time than it takes to type this.
 
we have our JRC as shown in pic. she decided not to fire up today. Yea we are fishing the mouth of the chesapeake bay shes very busy in there also. this ship steamed out of the southeast sea lane in a hurry.

:cry:
 

Attachments

  • 051.jpg
    051.jpg
    78.1 KB · Views: 6
I was running a boat(28 Sea Ray) on a sunny day, inside Charleston harbor. We were headed up the Wando river and i got it figured out, so i turn the boat around, only to be greeted by a fog bank that rolled in> i could see the top of the old bridges, but nothing below. I brought the boat off plane and started listening. I could hear a fog horn going off when suddenly out of the fog was the bow of a container ship, I ran 90 off of his course till I was in shallow water, then came about 90 again and creeped along till I could see the base of the bridges. Once I knew where I was, I idled under the bridges(staying out of the channel, but in deep enough water), kept going to i could see the Yorktown, ran parallel to it till I got the entrance to teh marina. The owner of the boat was with me and he was freaking out the whole time, I was a bit nervous my self, but I kept it close and never let on. Once we got the boat tied up and put away, he was asking me how i knew what to do and how to handle it, some how telling him I pulled it out of my *** wasn't going to sound very professional, so i told him I took the power squadron safety course and told him where to sign up and learn more. Sounded good anyways!
 
A tip for you guys without radar but have a GPS.
It was actually an idea of mine that worked, LOL

I went out in the am. with a good buddy and my oldest son about six years ago on the V20 Old School. We were drifting the big channel on the NY side when we looked back to land on the NJ side we saw a giant sheet of white paper, literally nothing could be distinguished at all and it was rolling into us at a speed I could not believe.
Literally went from clear morning to can't see 50 yards in 15 minutes.
The Ambrose Channel is one of the biggest channels in the east for giant cargo ships pretty much non stop all day and night.
I went back nice and calm and made my way to my saved Track and Waypoint that I had done as soon as I got on the water when I put the new GPS in.
I had saved a track back following a contour in about 20 feet of water all the way back to the launch. I idled in and had eagle eye teenage soon standing forward of the windshield with the cuddy top pushed forward. All three of us in life jackets and handed my buddy a long shank heavy screw driver and had him tap the bow rail every thirty seconds or so with a decent sharp rap. Nice chime sound you know.
Had to cross two channels and had waypoints on the edge of each. Paused there looked as best as we could and got across them quick.
It is scary but it worked, the Coast Guard boys were running for a long time answering radio calls for help.
One guy got an assist real abrupt and quick as he drifted to close to the Earl Naval Weapons Pier and got a M60 pointed at his head for his mistake.
 
Kracker Jack said:
We heard him blowing his fog horn but its safer to standby and get visual before you move. Alot of guys make the mistake of trying to move with no visual and almost running up on him. QUOTE]

Thats about the best thing you can do......

Radar would be great....if it were cheap, in the meantime I gotta use the radar god gave me(eyes and ears)
Click to expand...
 
willy said:
One guy got an assist real abrupt and quick as he drifted to close to the Earl Naval Weapons Pier and got a M60 pointed at his head for his mistake.
Click to expand...

LOL .. I was on my way back in to the Leonardo State ramp two years ago.. Missed the corner bouy in the sun... got about 50 feet inside of where I should have been...realized it and was headed back out around it when suddenly there was a boat alongside of me and this guy with an M16 pointed at me. Those guys got no sense of humor at all.

Shame about Earl... Before 9/11 I used to drift for Fluke right in the channel in front of the pier. Got run off every now and then, but everyone fished there... Now, you get that close, you have a date with the Naval Police on the pier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top