Foggy Encounter With An Ore Freighter
by arlyn stewart
by arlyn stewart
An hour out of Harrisville, Michigan bound for the Canadian city of Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula, we are beset with fog that brings visibility down to a hundred feet at times. The ninety mile passage across Lake Huron usually requires a minimum eighteen hours and night sailing so an eleven AM departure was chosen to ensure arriving after daybreak. Had the fog set earlier, we'd delayed departure. R&R is a Catalina 250 water ballasted center boarder and sailing well on a beam reach with SE winds at 10-12 and if they hold through the night, we will make Canadian landfall at dawn for a quick passage for our trailer sailor, with the remainder of the day to rest. The mid day fog is rare among our Great Lakes cruising experience.
The radio squawks securitee calls with a host of power cruisers giving their location, course, and speed. One result of gps and autopilots is that many of the boats making a passage between two points, do so on almost identical tracks…and in both directions. This is nice for waving and bikini observations but becomes a hazard when fog besets. In fairness to power cruisers, many of them have radar but thats only mildly comforting as we have none. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with the open water crossing compared to a coastal passage on a busy track in the fog even though we have shipping lanes to cross.
Lin is new to sailing with last summer her first cruise. Those ten days of bad weather had yielded little sailing with only one good day near the end. It was a long twelve hour passage in strong winds and five foot seas between Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas and hadn't bothered her. The experience had given her confidence she had the stomach for sailing but not long after starting out on this passage, she made the mistake of going below too soon to stow some gear before acquiring any sea legs.
She is sick... very sick with both hands glued to the two handles of a plastic bag. All she can do is lay still and keep warm so I throw Ayla's (our Sheltie dog) blanket and a sleeping bag over her and a pillow under her head and she is satisfied to find sleep lying on the port cockpit bench.
Though now clear of the pleasure craft track between Tawas Point and Thunder Bay Lighthouse as well as the sport salmon fishermen, the primary Great Lakes shipping lanes lay just ahead and they are busy. The first is the upbound lane at eighteen miles from Harrisville, then the downbound at twenty five.
Three miles and thirty minutes from the upbound lane, a call is placed for assistance, identifying our sailing vessel, location and North East course between Harrisville and Tobermory and a request for lane crossing assistance from any freighter in the area. A quick reply from a south bound freighter yet well north of us acknowledges our presence on his radar screen. He confirms that there are no north bound ships near. Asking again the name of our vessel, he promises to track and advise of any problems passing each other.
The upbound lane is crossed in very dense fog with a feeling of comfort by the all clear radar report. Closer to the downbound lane, the yet distant sound of a ships horn to the northeast is heard and believed to be the freighter that answered the call for assistance. Visibility has improved to something less than two hundred yards, which doesn't offer much comfort considering the ore boats are near twice as long as visibility. The horn is heard at two-minute intervals for several minutes and growing closer and consideration is given to responding with the boats small air horn but Lin had such a bad round with the barf bag and is now peacefully asleep and I doubt a freighter will hear anyway.
Considered as well is stopping and letting the ship clear decisively south but after reflecting on the assurance that if any problem exist the freighter skipper will get back to me and that I had been clearly distinguishable on his radar, I choose to keep moving.
The horn blast, yet fairly distant, cease. Eight minutes or so go by without a sound and I wonder if the freighter has passed south or as we are still nearly twenty minutes from the lane, the captain decided no need existed to continue sounding. At point number four shown on the chart, consideration is given to calling again in the guise of thanking the captain for his help but the heavy fog has brought an abundance of securitee calls on the channel so I decide against, after all there was strong assurance given that he would call me if there were any concerns and I had offered my appreciation earlier.
Suddenly the ship looms from the fog north of us. The first glimpse provides inadequate perspective to determine our exact position to its course but he is closing on us. Even though a vigilant watch has my eyes exactly at the place where he emerged, surprise grips. Seeing him is totally unexpected, we're yet nearly two miles west of the lane. Reaching for the mike, "Freighter providing the sailing vessel R&R with assistance, I have visual, your north of me and closing, please advise." He quickly responds seeming more calm than I, "Is this the sailboat fifty rods off my bow heading northeast?" My dad used rods measurements more often than yards and I could only vaguely remember the distance reference and wasn't sure how many we were and didn't think this was a good time for a primer on measurements, what seems important is I know we are the boat right off his bow and he is closing. "Yes."
The wheel house on a modern thousand foot long ore freighter is aft and he hasn't yet obtained visual on me when he assures, "We are ok to pass port-to-port, stay your course." That means we have or will cross closely in front of him… something I’d never do with normal visibility. Short moments later, his bow sweeps by our port stern quarter with Ayla yapping at the monster intruder. When the pilot house comes into view, he gives a long and then short blast on the fog horn to acknowledge that he has visual. I wave to return the exchange. The fog offers only a third of the vessel visible at a time and as quick as he came, he slides away.
After regaining composure, my first reaction is to wonder why the captain stopped sounding. Two possibilities come to mind. One, he was seeking a little entertainment… he'd slip right into our back yard and blow the frigging horn and scare the living jeebers out of us and to this, he would have been successful had my close vigil not spotted him first. Two, if he had continued sounding, I may have (likely would have) come up and hove to waiting for him to clear and with his intention of crossing astern, he needed me to hold my course and speed.
My second reaction was awe of his timing. Using radar, he had calculated what it took for me to cross just thirty seconds in front of him and he pass one hundred yards off our stern allowing for the visual in the heavy fog. It was both a bold move and well managed effort on his part which offers the second possible explanation of why he did this, as a test or statement of mariner skill.
Sailboats and power cruisers rarely cross Lake Huron especially here at this widest part. Harrisville, with few resident craft, is a harbor of refuge for transient pleasure craft plying north and south along Michigan's Eastern coastline and a craft crossing to Canada on this course is quite unusual. The captain of the freighter may have felt that a sailing vessel making this crossing was skippered by either a seasoned captain or a nut and because I had known where the lanes were and done the prudent thing to call for assistance with crossing them in the fog, he likely believed I was the former and would probably hold my course having received assurance from him. That I didn't come up during his short period of sounding probably verified to him my intension to keep moving and he felt safe in pressing for the close crossing. I have to believe if he'd felt I was a novice, he'd stayed clear or warned me to stay clear.
Reflecting about the conditions, the wind was constant and we were sailing under autopilot with a consistent course and speed. I have to also believe the freighter driver took that in consideration and had our course and speed been variable, no encounter would have occurred, he would have stayed clear or warned me to.
There could have been more communication. I could have sounded or called again and verified that he had me yet and all was well, perhaps asking him for a sounding. He could have (and perhaps should have) advised me to hold course and speed, but that certainly would have aroused my suspicion of a close passing and taken away the element of surprise, if that was his game.
Other thoughts... was the helm watch the captain? Did the helm watch hesitate to call me back to avoid a query by the captain as to what was happening? If I called, he could give instructions without raising suspicion, but for him to call me with concern might trigger the captain to ask what the concern was and a discovery by the captain that he wasn't in the lane. A helm watch theory might explain the choice of words when he came back to me, " We are ok, we will pass port to port, stay your course." He would have more specifically answered my request by saying, you will safely clear me ahead if you stay your course which would have been more descriptive of what was happening, I was crossing his bow more than passing him port to port.
If the captain had heard that a sailboat had acknowledged a visual when visibility was only 150 yards, and then his helm watch advised to stay the course and you will clear ahead... I believe he'd been headed to the wheelhouse to find out what was happening. Could this also be a reason he sounded only for a short time? Would protracted sounding in open water cause the captain to question why? On the same vein of thought, helm watch or Captain... they may not have wished to have the Coasties listening to a fog encounter where a sailing vessel is identified crossing visual distance ahead the bow of an ore freighter in open water after the sailing skipper had asked for assistance to stay clear.
As my memory plays back the incident, another issue is that the freighter in the few short radio transmissions, never identifies. Did this play into the encounter? Would the decision to cross so close have been made had I known the vessel and been able to offer a complaint? Did the captain or helmsman purposefully avoid identifying? Who knows the answers to these questions? Likely, only the helmsman on that watch.
If the freighter had been in the lane, he'd cleared twenty minutes ahead, but then maybe he wanted to give me a story to tell or have one to tell himself. If so, at least my vigil saved me from a fog horn blast that would have caused a breaches change.
Six months after the incident, after downloading a new chart (chart above is from the new chart), another perspective emerged. My older Noaa chart number 14864 has its name "Harrisville to Forty Mile Point" written across the section of chart that notes that these lanes are the east and west lane limits as seen on the chart above. This means that the freighter tracked nearly two miles west of his westerly limit to share the encounter.
Note: We sometimes cross Lake Huron to fetch the North Channel from Harrisville because we trailer R&R from our home in Texas to Harrisville where there is family, making it convenient to put in near a home base for visiting family before and after a cruise. (Note: The ramp will only provide for shallow draft). With predominant NNW local winds, a crossing here often works good for us. It not only avoids an often motored passage along Michigan's coast but provides a greater sense of passage making because of the night sailing required, the 90-100 mile distance with much of it open water out of sight of land, and in some ways the leaving of the US and entering of Canada via a long passage.
Two fine anchorages, Rattlesnake Cove on Fitzwilliam Island or Club Island offer great rest locations following the crossing after a visit to either Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula or South Baymouth on the southern end of Manitoulin Island for customs call in. (Note: The fuel and pump out dock at South Baymouth requires shallow draft.) One more day from either of these marinas or anchorages provides an easy fetch to end the year long wait for the great fish-n-chips at the famous Heberts channel side school bus in Kilarney, Ontario.