Just before nine in the evening, I’m on watch, and a visual 360-degree sweep of the world around me gives me a light behind me and one up ahead. At this point, just twinkles on the horizon, either stars, the sky is full of them, or perhaps ships.
When ships get close enough, they will actually show up on our navigation screen. And so the ‘Sun Orchard’ does, a cargo ship of 292 x 45 meters motoring behind us with a CPA (closest point of approach) of 9.8 nm. She’ll pass by us somewhere shortly at that very respectable distance. The signal status on the dashboard says ‘Sleeping.’ Nothing to worry about.
Ahead of us is the LNG Jupiter, a tanker measuring 289 x 49 meters carrying dangerous goods. CPA of 0.4 nm, way too close for comfort.
The CPA is calculated by sticking our heading and speed and the approaching vessel’s heading and speed in a relatively simple formula. It tells you the closest you’ll be to that other vessel and when. If you are on a collision course, it tells you the exact time of the big bang to come.
The tanker will likely not deviate from the present course or change speed. We, however, a small sailboat with little to no wind is all over the place. The CPA is continuously recalculated. From 0.4 all the way to 2.2 nm and back to 1.5.
The signal status on the dashboard screams ‘Dangerous’ in bright red letters. I can see her lights clearly now. One high up on the bridge, one a little lower on the bow, and her green navigation light on starboard. Highly likely she’ll be crossing ahead of us.
You know you’re in trouble if you can see her red port side light and the green starboard light simultaneously. She’s coming directly at you.
So we’re good, I know that, but the mind plays tricks. That tanker is one huge mother of batting ram and if she’d hit us, send us to kingdom come, the person in the wheelhouse probably wouldn’t even notice. All sorts of horror stories are going around about small ships having sunk unnoticed.
I have this uneasy feeling seeing her come closer and closer, but then the green light passes in front of our little boat, more than 2 nm ahead of us. Still 7 minutes to a CPA of 1.9 nm, which occurs four minutes after ten on our starboard side.
All is well in the world. But Neptune, send us some wind!!!