Near Miss Overtaking

Overtaking Hazards
- Approaches to Suez Canal.
- Report No. 93024.

I had just completed the northbound transit and had disembarked the pilot and canal crew about half a mile inside the breakwaters of the east branch. I was carrying a full cargo of palm oil products and drawing about nine meters. I proceeded down the channel at a safe speed and out into the Mediterranean, making due allowance for the easterly set experienced across the entrance. Once I had entered the channel I gave full manoeuvring speed of 10 knots.

The ship astern of me in the convoy, (a small reefer of about 5,000 dwt) was still disembarking the pilot so I was able to put a good distance between us. However, as soon as she got under way, it became obvious that she was faster than my vessel and she started to overhaul me. I then started to keep a close eye on her.

Owing to some of the channel buoys being unlit, I was having difficulty following the channel and was therefore using the radar for navigation, I was also making frequent visits to the bridge wings to check on the overtaking vessel's progress. She appeared to be East of the channel. Four miles out from the entrance a ship was anchored three or four cables to the East of the channel and I passed half a mile ahead of this vessel. The ship that was overtaking me could not have passed more than one cable ahead of the anchored vessel, at one stage I thought she was going to collide with it, and I was now getting concerned as to how close she was going to approach me.

As I knew the name of the vessel, I called her on the VHF and after several attempts, I received an answer from her. I informed her that in my opinion she was passing too close to me and requested that she alter course to increase the distance. I had contemplated making a drastic alteration to port to clear her but that would have taken me into the large ship anchorage which was fairly crowded with ships, I therefore elected to slow down to enable the overtaking vessel to get clear of me.

Intuition told me that the overtaking ship would head for the West once she thought she had enough room to do so. I therefore continued to keep a close eye on her, sure enough, as soon as she could see to the West across my bow, she started to alter course to port. She was at that time less than two cables off my starboard bow. I immediately ordered hard-a-starboard and passed less than half a cable under her stern, this action took me towards some shallower water where I would not have elected to go unless forced to.

She was not the only vessel moving in the vicinity and if I had not kept a very close eye on her I am sure a collision would have ensued. I am convinced that the bridge team on the other vessel did not appreciate the fact that when altering course the approach vector changes, especially when trying to cross ahead of a vessel being overtaken. This can quickly turn the situation from a vessel which is passed and clear to a vessel on a collision course.

I do not know why the vessel had not attempted to cross my stern and to overtake me on my port side. I had kept well up to the starboard hand giving her plenty of room to overtake me on my port side and giving her a clear run to the west.

As in the case of MARS 93016, we have a reporter highlighting the problems of being overtaken. From the information available, there was no reason why the overtaking vessel in this case did not elect to overtake on the port side. Again, as in 93016, not only did the vessel overtake on the "wrong" side, it did not wait until well passed and clear before altering course across the bow of the overtaken ship. Rule 13, as well as being common sense, is one of the least complicated and is easy to interpret.