Second yacht/trawler collision in two months

by Roslina Mohamad, The Star/Sail-World Cruising on 22 Jul 2009 The importance of keeping a proper lookout was again underlined this week when a fishing trawler collided with a yacht off the east coast of Australia.

It is the second such incident in two months. In May an American citizen lost his life when his yacht collided with a fishing trawler of the east coast of Malaysia and sank

This weeks's incident occurred 4 nautical miles off north of Yamba on the NSW North Coast in the early morning. As the yacht, 777s, was not, in this case, holed below the waterline, it suffered only topside damage. The trawler Betjay, which operates out of Iluka, is a suspended net fishing vessel, but it is not known if it was engaged in fishing at the time.

The yacht was escorted into Yamba, and NSW Maritime is investigating.

In the Malaysian incident, the trawler did not stop, and four other crewmen, an Irishman and three Thai nationals, were rescued from the water by another fishing boat. The yacht had set sail from Phuket in Thailand and was heading to Langkawi.



Editor's Note: There are a number of reasons why fishing boats may not keep a proper watch at sea and pose a hazard, particularly to a yacht which, for whatever reason, cannot make way:

** They are often undercrewed, and sometimes do not get enough sleep during their sojourns at sea, so a watch may be imperfectly kept.
** On occasions the entire crew can be called and occupied with some facet of fishing, and they do not monitor their radio.
** At some stages of the fishing process their fishing lights are so bright that their night vision is severely impaired
** While they are manoeuvrable compared to a ship and hence do not pose the same threat, the noise of their engines often masks the approach of another vessel, and one cannot get their attention.

It is also worth noting that dependence on an AIS system will not guard against collision with fishing vessels, which are not currently covered by AIS regulations. There are also some jurisdictions in the world under which it is not necessary for ships to carry an AIS transponder. For safe ocean travel by a yacht, it is advisable that a visual human watch should still be maintained at all times, using an AIS as supplementary aid.

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