Fog at sea in a small boat is un-nerving. You feel as though you are totally alone until you hear that fog horn. When you hear one you cannot easily determine how far off it is of what direction. You can't see so you can't identify it (unless you have radar or AIS) and you have no idea if they are aware of your existence on their radar.
The rules of thumb are if you get into fog:
- Nav lights on.
- Engine ticking over and ready.
- Everyone on deck to keep look out.
- Reduce speed but maintain steerage.
- Use fog horn.
- If you have radar have it on. (We have one)
- Wear wet weather gear and lifejackets
- If you are worried contact the coastguard and report your position speed and course
- Navigator to keep a record of position every few minutes
- For a small boat, if possible move to shallow water where ships can't go
When we made our northbound transit of the Chenal Du Four we were engulfed in a fog bank which was completely unexpected. We implemented the rules of thumb and stuck to our course on the GPS but I had set a waypoint quite close to what I thought was a channel marker. The tide was running at about 5 knots and when we got close it loomed out of the fog and was actually a huge concrete pillar about 20 ft high and the tide was dragging us towards it. Luckily we had our engine running and were able to drive away from it - quite un-nerving!!!! While we were in the fog there were about 12 other boats in the vicinity and their fog horns were quite confusing as they all sounded the same and were coming from all around us.
We left for L'Aberwrach from Camaret on Friday 23rd August and we are still here waiting for a weather window.
Chanal du Four without fog
1/2 hour later our visibility was 25 feet (seriously worrying)
You might say why go out in fog - well, it was not forecasted.
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