Keeping a Good Watch

Keeping a Good Watch
Report No. 200028

Own vessel, a 4,000 grt passenger vessel, was on passage from Bordeaux towards Saint-Nazaire. It was about 2300 hrs and already dark when our vessel came in sight of the Isle d`Yeux, a small island off the coast of western France and one of our waypoints, where we had to alter course towards the Loire approach. The Staff Captain was the Officer of the watch and I was on the Bridge as a Cadet.

To help me gain experience, the Staff Captain had allowed me to act as the OOW and to navigate the vessel under supervision. There was very little traffic around apart from a few fishing boats on our starboard side in the inshore traffic zone off the Isle d`Yeux and one vessel coming round the island clearly following a similar but reciprocal track to our vessel. As we had no ARPA I took great care in observing this vessel on opposite course for over 45 minutes (from the time she came in sight) and found a clear passing distance. Both vessels approached with moderate speed, with a good passing distance, both following the course around the Isle d´ Yeux and the only other vessels around were the fishing boats on our starboard side: It was a very clear situation and so I felt it was safe enough to leave the bridge to plot the position on the chart when the other vessel was still on our port bow. When I entered the chart room there was a little voice in my head telling me that the OOW should never leave the bridge with another vessel around but on the other hand I told myself immediately that there was no logical reason at all for the other vessel to alter course and that I was supposed to plot my position very exactly on the hour.

Less than a minute later I heard the Staff Captain cursing and I hurried back to the bridge where I found that the other vessel had indeed altered course directly in front of our bow and it seemed as if she would make a full circle with hard rudder angle and maximum speed. The Staff Captain altered course to port to pass behind her stern and, after a few minutes, she was on our starboard quarter, still turning. It was then that somebody must have woken up on the other vessel because the rate of turn slowed down and then they managed to turn astern of us to bring the vessel back to the original course. This has been obviously a very strange manoeuvre and if it had occurred only a few minutes later, or without somebody on the bridge on our vessel this could have developed into a very dangerous situation. I have no idea what led to this absolutely unpredictable manoeuvre of the other vessel but I know that I have learnt never to be too sure about what other vessels in the vicinity will do and not to think that any manoeuvre could be foreseen. It took days for me to cope with this situation, because I had to think about what could have happened had I really had been the OOW of our vessel.