Rules of the road for charter skippers

The rules of the road

At sea there are no traffic lights and no lanes painted on the water. Instead every vessel, from a cruise ship to your charter yacht’s dinghy, follows one rule book: the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, the COLREGs. You do not need to know all of them for a charter week. You do need the dozen or so that decide who keeps out of whose way, and the habit of acting early and obviously.

Harbours and some coasts add local rules on top: speed limits close to beaches, swimming areas marked with yellow buoys, harbours where you must be under engine with the sails down. The pilot book and the charter briefing tell you about them; ask if they do not.

The rules decide who keeps clear, but they never give anyone the right to hit anyone. Every skipper must do whatever it takes to avoid a collision.

Is there a risk of collision?

The first question is always: are we on a collision course? The test is the bearing of the other vessel. Take a bearing with the hand-bearing compass every few minutes. If it stays the same while she gets closer, you are on a collision course. If it draws steadily aft she will pass astern of you; if it draws ahead she will pass ahead.

Without a compass to hand, line her up with something on your own boat, a stanchion or a winch, while the helm holds a steady course: if she stays in line, she is on a collision course. And with a big ship, a ferry or anything at close range, treat any doubt as a risk: a long ship’s bow and stern bear quite differently.

Head-on and crossing: two power-driven vessels

Your yacht counts as a power-driven vessel whenever the engine is driving her, with the sails up or not. So these two rules apply every time you motor between anchorages:

• Head-on (Rule 14). Meeting on opposite or nearly opposite courses, both turn to starboard and pass port side to port side. If you are not sure whether it is head-on, assume it is.
• Crossing (Rule 15). The vessel that has the other on her own starboard side gives way, and should avoid crossing ahead: usually a clear turn to starboard, passing astern. The other stands on, keeping her course and speed.

Overtaking

A vessel coming up from more than 22.5° abaft your beam is overtaking: at night she would see only your sternlight. The overtaking vessel keeps out of the way whatever she is: a yacht under sail overtaking a motor boat must keep clear of it (Rule 13). She stays the overtaking vessel until she is finally past and clear.

Sail and power, and two sailing yachts

In open water a power-driven vessel keeps out of the way of a sailing vessel (Rule 18). Remember the other side of that: the moment your engine is driving the boat, you are power-driven and you give way to yachts under sail, even with your own sails up. When two yachts under sail meet (Rule 12):

• with the wind on different sides, the yacht on port tack (wind over her port side, mainsail out to starboard) keeps clear;
• with the wind on the same side, the yacht to windward keeps clear of the one to leeward.

Who keeps clear of whom

Some vessels can’t get out of your way, so the rules put them above you, whether you are sailing or motoring:

Judge a vessel by what she is doing, not by what she is. A fishing boat motoring home with her gear stowed is just a power-driven vessel, and the head-on and crossing rules apply. In Croatia and Greece small fishing boats set nets close inshore, often marked only by floats and small flags: give them a wide berth and never motor over a line of floats.

Give way early, stand on with care

1. If you are the give-way vessel, act early and make a big alteration, 30° or more, that the other skipper cannot miss. A string of small changes is hard to see and easy to misread. Turning to starboard and passing astern is almost always right.
2. If you are the stand-on vessel, keep your course and speed so the other skipper can predict you, but keep watching. If she is clearly not giving way you may act, and if a collision can no longer be avoided by her alone you must. If you do act for a power-driven vessel on your port side, avoid turning to port, towards her.
3. Either way, keep checking until she is past and clear.

Narrow channels, harbour entrances and ferries

In a narrow channel or a harbour entrance, keep to the starboard side, as far over as is safe. A vessel under 20 metres or a yacht under sail must not impede a vessel that can only navigate safely inside the channel, and no one should cross a channel if that would impede such a vessel (Rule 9).

On a charter, that mostly means ferries. They run to a timetable, often fast, and turn up round a breakwater with little warning: the car ferries in and out of Split, the hydrofoils and ferries between Piraeus and the Saronic islands, the hydrofoils among the Aeolian islands, the ferries crossing between Corsica and Sardinia, and the Road Town ferries in the BVI.

• Hold back from a harbour mouth while a ferry is coming in or going out, then go.
• Cross a channel or a ferry route at right angles, briskly, and never across the bows of a ship.
• Under sail in a channel, have the engine running and ready, and be prepared to drop the sails early.

The sound signals you will actually hear

A short blast lasts about one second; a prolonged blast four to six seconds. In sight of each other, power-driven vessels use the horn to say what they are doing (Rule 34). These are the ones you will hear in every busy harbour:

In fog, vessels sound signals every two minutes or less (Rule 35): one prolonged blast for a power-driven vessel making way, one prolonged and two short for a sailing vessel, and a bell rung rapidly for a vessel at anchor. Fog is rare in the summer Mediterranean but does happen, notably in spring; if it comes in, the best plan is usually to stay in harbour.

The day shapes you are most likely to see

By day, vessels hoist black shapes in the rigging to say what they are doing. On a charter you will see three often, and should fly two yourself:

In practice many charter yachts never fly the cone, and plenty forget the ball, but the rules apply to yachts too (only a boat under 7 metres anchored well away from channels and anchorages is excused). Most charter yachts have a ball, and sometimes a cone, in a cockpit locker: ask at the briefing.

This lesson covers the rules a charter skipper uses most, not the whole of the COLREGs. It is independent training material by Nautical Nomads and is not accredited by the RYA or any other body.