200019 The Difference between Audacity and Temerity

The Difference between Audacity and Temerity

I guess the difference between audacity and temerity is measured by success. The attached diagram depicts tides at the San Francisco entrance. Point Bonita is the north westerly headland of the narrows. The Bonita Channel runs to the north west from Point Bonita to the far side of the Potato Patch Shoal. Bonita Cove lies east of the point. The little dots offshore to the south east on the opposite side of the narrows is Mile Rock(s). The COLREGS line lies between those points. Note that the current flows south in the Bonita Channel at maximum flood. There is a counter current flowing westerly in Bonita Cove at that time. The Coast Pilot advises about the intersection of those two currents and the effect on course that it is likely to have as the bow of a ship enters the south flowing current.

 

 

Coming back from Monterey some years ago I was sailing approximately north on a port tack close reach in my 30 foot sloop doing perhaps five or six knots. Winds were about Force 4, low seas and several miles visibility under a layer of stratus cloud at about six hundred feet altitude. Pretty typical conditions. Time was about 2300. It was moonless. Tide was flooding. I sighted the lights of a ship outbound somewhat east of the Golden Gate Bridge. While I wished to bear away from the flood current in mid channel, I was reluctant to put myself in a close encounter with the ship. I carried on, expecting the ship to alter course to port for the ship channel across the bar. I carried on, and on, and there was no alteration of course. Range continued to decrease and relative bearing remained about constant. Ultimately at about a quarter of a mile I bore away and jibed. Shortly afterwards I passed along the port side of what appeared to be a bulker of maybe 600 feet length at about two hundred yards. The ship had just passed Point Bonita, at a range of maybe one hundred yards and was then altering course to port.

Now, was this masterful seamanship, taking advantage both of favourable current on the north side of the channel and the current induced change in heading? I was pretty sanguine about the close encounter aspect of things with situational awareness, a good breeze, some speed and a boat that can turn in her own length. Pilotage is mandatory in San Francisco, and there is a Vessel Traffic Service. But I still wonder whether I should be impressed or horrified at the ship's close approach to Point Bonita. I have not seen this tactic employed before or since so I am inclined to the latter interpretation, but I guess that temerity is determined by failure. It might occur to some of your readers that I might have been rude, or at least inconsiderate, in carrying on to the north in my sailboat. Well, no attempt was made to contact me on 16, nor were five blasts sounded. East of the COLREGS line I would have been the give way vessel, and would happily have accommodated any course that the ship wished to make. She appeared to wish to take Pt. Bonita close aboard.