SoAl - Chapter Foggy Morning Question?

[nosaj2]

Guys, I need your input. What do you guys think is the best and safest way to start on a foggy morning. My concern is a boat fishing or stopped or idling in the fog and someone on plan running over them. I personally think that the best thing to do would be to stop as soon as you realize that you can't see through the fog and idle through until visibility is well enough to "scan ahead" while on plane.

[Jason Phillips]

Jason,

I would personally hope that everyone would already do that. Putting a rule out there regarding it will really be tough because one person may say it's too foggy and set down to idle when the person behind them thinks it's fine and runs over them. That scenario can happen at any time and you just have to put your faith in the other people on the lake to be cautious. Any rule would be very difficult to enforce and left completely up to individual judgment and opinion until the invention of a machine that can measure the thickness and visibility of fog.

I believe all you can do is tell everyone to be very careful and aware of their surroundings unless you feel the tournament start needs to be postponed until the fog lifts.

[Eric B]

If it's to bad delay the tourney. If not get out the way cause some folks will run just by the gps.

[kk4iz]

GPS units are not radar unit, no way to tell if a boat or log is out there. I'm setting back until I can see and get out of the way until the fog lifts.



Modified by kk4iz at 12:20 PM 11/2/2008

[Shoofly]

I second what Jason Phillips said

[fish recycler]

I think what you did Saturday was good Jason.....we delayed a few more minutes to let the sun get up a little more and you reminded everyone to be careful. You are right....when the fog gets thick you got to come off plane, get close to the edge of the bank and strong idle the direction you want to go. That way someone who thinks they are superman and can see through the fog won't hit you.
A key is to come off plane and get toward the edge of the bank...it gives you something to go by and keeps people from hitting you.
Joey, Rick, and I hopped each other down river....when it got thick we would idle down or just stop and fish. I could see Joey's lights and where Rick was fishing (got them marked)
You can't always run on GPS like someone else said.....Cooter's Pond is not on Navionics and often normal GPS shows you on the bank when you are in the water.

[buzzn]

I agree with Chad,...Jason did an excellent job by holding everybody a little longer....I think that everyone in our tx showed restrait by, as Chad said, we "....hopped each other down river..." or pulled to the immediate bank and started fishing.

I understand and share Jason's concern about some type of guidelines, but I think it comes down to personal responsibility. If guidelines were established it would not protect our club members from other club txs participates whose travels often originate from other locations and have paths of travel that often intersect with ours.

We all need to be mindful of boat safety in what ever conditions that might exsist.

[AveryF]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nosaj2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Guys, I need your input. What do you guys think is the best and safest way to start on a foggy morning.......</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hold 'em up until it clears up enough to run safely, no matter how much crap the guys give you. Sometimes you've just got to be a harda$$ for their own good even if it isn't a popular decision.

[joetriton150]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1niceStratos &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Jason,

I would personally hope that everyone would already do that. Putting a rule out there regarding it will really be tough because one person may say it's too foggy and set down to idle when the person behind them thinks it's fine and runs over them. That scenario can happen at any time and you just have to put your faith in the other people on the lake to be cautious. Any rule would be very difficult to enforce and left completely up to individual judgment and opinion until the invention of a machine that can measure the thickness and visibility of fog.

I believe all you can do is tell everyone to be very careful and aware of their surroundings unless you feel the tournament start needs to be postponed until the fog lifts.</TD></TR></TABLE>

[nosaj2]

Guys thanks for the input. I personally believe it is Man's God given rite to participate in natural selection. However, when our actions endanger the lives of others I take offense. I personally know the dangers of running on plane with low visibility. (no comments please) I think Chad had the best advice. As for a devise to "measure" fog thickness??? If you can see well enough to "scan" ahead, then visibility is good. If your visibility is shorter than the distance it would take for you to safely react or come to a complete stop, then you are driving to fast. I would hate for anyone of our club to run over someone or get run over in fog. The only sure way to keep that from happening is to hold everyone until the fog lifts. However, if I had done that Saturday, we would have been sitting there until almost 8:00am Anyway, I'm not sure what the best solution is at the moment. Let's just hope we don't have too many foggy mornings.

[JayLaw]

Jason- if you dont mind i will chime in on this one. The tournament director has that tough decision to make at any level of competition. Once you deem it it safe for those to travel, they do so at their own risk, though i will get to that in a second.

The conditions we left in on Saturday were favorable at the point of the launch, with visibilty of about 100 yards(300 feet is enough time to react), and looking north it was close to a half mile. Once around the bend it was quicklly noted noticed that visibility was less then 40 feet. You had no way of knowing this. You asked me before the start what I would do and I stated under the current condition i would feel good about launching and if it was bad down river I would just pull off and fish. This is exactly what happened, we rounded the first bend and the fog bank was there, i pulled over and began to fish,some chose to continue on at a slow speed. I continued to fish till about 745 till there was a break and ran further down river till i hit another fog bank around 4 miles down, again I pulled over to fish. The safe thing to do.

As stated you made the call to launch the field into conditions that at the time were acceptable to launch, you nor no one else had any idea what the fog was like down river. Most folks pulled over to the side and fished, some idled through the fog and ran when they could. This is good seamanship by those who either stopped and fished, pulled to the side, or those who idled along at a safe speed.

There will always be those who think their GPS unit was designed to run in low light or poor visisbility and this simply is not the case as a gps unit is not RADAR and those who may choose to run are not only indangering their lives but those of others and would be held accountable by the "rules of the road" for navigating US Inland Waterways. I do not believe that any of us in this event choose to do the latter. Good seamanship on their part!

Now for the bad part, IF something did happen and folks ran WOT- or even a speed deemed inappropiate for conditions down through the fog (they would be a dumbass if they did) they would be held accountable as well as, and this is a tough one but you could also be held responsible for letting the field go under such conditions- even though you had no idea how bad the fog would be down the river. This would have to be proven as pure neglegence on your part which would be hard to prove given the visibilty at and around the launch site. Either way the ultimate responsibilty is that of the Person operating the vessel, and use of common sense can go a long way. I know alot of folks in Northern alabama fish night tournaments and run rivers at night( you can see lights in the dark- not in the fog) all the time using gps, which is fine, though fog is a completely different story and a minimum speed should be heeded by those in those conditions.

Again GPS is just THAT! It is NOT RADAR, and should not be intended to be used that way. If you run at night and hit a log oh well, if you run in the fog and hit another boat you better have a good insurance policy and hope that no one gets injured.

So in closing Jason- you made the call I would have made which was to release the field under the current conditions, the boaters ultimately have the responsibilty of operating thier vessel under the current conditions in accordance with the the US Coast Guard Rules of the Road on inland waterways.

[nosaj2]

Thanks Jay, I believe everyone that fishes with us are adults and have good common sense. I just want to remind them of that from time to time.