Re: [Paddlewise] crossing ship channels safely?

From: ralph diaz <rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 09:09:26 -0700
One comment re Dave's excellent insights on channels, shipping lanes and
us.

Dave Kruger wrote:
> 
> Gerald Foodman wrote:
> >
> > Duane,
> > What are safety considerations on crossing shipping channels?  How do you
> > know when you are in the channel?
> 
> I suspect Duane's group was crossing a shipping "lane," not a shipping
> "channel."  The former is a relatively wide strip of sea in essentially
> unrestricted waters, often with charted separation zones in places 

SNIPPED
> captain to pick out in seas.  In contrast, shipping channels are easy to cross,
> because they are so well-defined by aids to navigation, and so narrow.

This is generally true but in some port areas such as NYC you may find
it hard to know whether you are in a channel or not.  In the Upper Bay
area's South West quadrant, a little bit aways from where the Kill Van
Kull meets the Bay, there are several meeting and crossing channels.  I
was cross that area at one time and realized I wasn't certain where I
was exactly in terms of being out of channel or not.

Later I happened to be on a large vessel in a museum harbor tour and I
looked out at the area.  The buoy markers were as clear in defining
channels as are the broken lines of a highway and exit ramp.  But from
the seat of a kayak they were not so clear.  It was a mesh of nuns and
cans.  You could think you were out of one channel when you were
actually in an adjacent one.

ralph diaz
-- 
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Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter
PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com
"Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag."
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Received on Mon Jun 26 2000 - 06:10:32 PDT

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