93003 Near Miss Crossing PSC China

ColRegs, Yet again
- Manila to Hong Kong. Wind NE 4/5. Daytime.
- Report No. 93003.

Own ship was a small container vessel, target vessel a large tanker crossing from port to starboard. Failure of the tanker to give way caused me to reduce speed as action to avoid collision. Altering course would have caused violent rolling and my vessel was loaded with containers. The resultant close quarters minimum distance was 0.19 miles.

I wonder and question why large vessels think they have the right of way over small vessels, even though this action contravenes the Collision Regulations.

I would have thought that officers on a tanker would have more sense, being the type of vesels they are and the consequences of collisions.

Even repeated five short and rapid blasts on both whistle and light produced no effect and VHF calls were not answered.