Author Involved in Nighttime Near       Catastrophe

by Dick Werner, ACBS Director
 

Last winter I wrote an article about a nighttime collision that happened last summer on Priest Lake, Idaho. The lake is about 22 miles long and has an irregular shoreline with many bays as well as several islands. Numerous cottages dot the shoreline as well as about a half-dozen restaurants which you can boat to. So, it is pretty inviting to go out for a late afternoon cruise and stop by one of the restaurants and have dinner. If it happens to be a little later in the summer when it gets dark earlier, we’ll find ourselves cruising back to our homeport in the dark. In that article I mentioned that the Chris Sea Skiff that was hit and sunk by an oncoming boat traveling too fast, had no running lights on. Therefore, one could conclude after reading the article that if we have running lights on we should be safe. The point of this article is that is not necessarily the case.
 

Early in September Louise, another couple, and I were leaving a restaurant on a very dark moonless night. We were in our 21 foot Lyman, which has a tall stern pole with a bright 12 volt light. Any other boat that might be in the bay should have easily spotted us. We were cruising at around 7-8 knots halfway out in the bay when suddenly my friend’s wife turned around and yelled, “We’re about to be hit!” My head whirled around to see the bow lights of another boat ready to plow into our stern. I immediately pulled the wheel to the right and the driver of the other boat fortunately did the same to the left. He raced by us (doing at least 30 knots) missing our boat by inches. Luckily the only thing that happened to us, other than me almost having cardiac arrest, was a thorough soaking from the spray of his wake. In spite of my sudden anxiety I did recognize the boat, which happened to be another wood boat.
 

When I got back to our cabin I called the boat owner. I guess I could have rightfully chewed him out, but that would not have accomplished anything. Once he regained his composure after expressing his embarrassment and apologies he admitted he was going too fast and was talking to his friends in the boat and not paying any particular attention to what was ahead of him. But what was really interesting was that he said when he did look ahead, he did not see any running lights until he was practically on top of us. You, like me, are probably wondering how that could be.
 

My friend, Tom Drozd (a bonafide Century enthusiast) who’d been one of the passengers, and I spent part of the next day trying to figure out how someone would not pick up on a bright stern light when approaching that boat at night.
 

Let’s paint a scenario: you are some distance – say around 1/4 to 1/2 mile – directly behind another boat and cannot see their red and green bow light, but only the stern light. How different does that look from shore lights? You say quite a lot. Try it sometime. That stern light, if the water is calm and it is not bobbing up and down will fade into the shore lights. Normally, if you are traveling at a fairly slow cruising speed and you get close to the boat you can certainly tell the difference. On the other hand if you are moving at a fairly fast speed, not paying as close attention as you should, you will be on top of that boat before you can tell the difference. The only additional thing that would make it worse is if the driver had had a few alcoholic beverages. Fortunately, for our sake, this boater had not; otherwise, I doubt if his reaction would have been quick enough to swerve his boat away and thereby avoid a collision.
 

So what can we do? I gave thought of adding a few colored lights to the transom, but then the oncoming boats would not know if we are coming or going.
 

The obvious answer is that you should only slow-cruise at night or dusk and leave the speeding to the day. The driver always needs to be looking ahead and constantly judging the difference in distance of the lights ahead so he can differentiate between shore lights and stern lights. Have one of your passengers frequently look behind and see if another boat could be approaching. Of course if you are by yourself (which is not recommended at night), you will need to be watching all around you.
 

It is very enjoyable to cruise in our mahogany beauties under the stars, but drive slowly and keep a lookout for those who are going too fast and cannot determine whether they are coming close to shore lights or your stern light.