Behaviour Patterns in Encounters between Ships

Extract

In G. R. Spooner's interesting if not important article (27, 265), a situation was described wherein a risk of collision was created by basic non-adherence to the Rules. Firstly, the intention of the officer-of-the-watch to alter course to port was wrong, whilst that of the Master, substantially to alter course to starboard, was right. Secondly, the action of the non-burdened vessel was in error in as much as she should have stood on in anticipation of the burdened vessel making a decisive turn to starboard. The fact that at the precise moment of ordering this turn the other ship altered to port need not have necessarily prevented the burdened vessel from altering to starboard and ‘taking a turn out’—a procedure adopted in many such instances as that under discussion.