‘Manœuvres to Ensure the Avoidance of Collision’

Extract

Following the publication of E. S. Calvert's Manœuvres to Ensure the Avoidance of Collision (Journal, 13, 127) a number of people closely concerned with the problem of collision at sea were invited to comment on Mr. Calvert's ideas. This comment was published in Vol. 13, Nos. 3 and 4 (pp. 350–352 and 455–464). Mr. Calvert here replies to some of the criticisms. The paper he refers to as his latest will be published in the October number of the Journal.

to Captain H. D. Harries

Without a more precise definition of ‘open sea’ and ‘crowded waters', I doubt if any figure for the proportion of collisions in each has much meaning. (The same kind of difficulty arises in defining a ‘near miss’.) More precise figures might possibly be obtained by giving the proportion of collisions which occur within so many miles of the mouth of a channel, a channel being defined as an area where local or ‘edge’ rules are in force, or where the traffic is controlled. However, I doubt whether the use which could be made of such statistics would justify the trouble of collecting them. In my latest paper, i.e. the one to be published in the next issue of the Journal, I have given what I believe to be the only possible solution to the crowded-water situation, in so far as rules can provide a solution.