Big ships, narrow channels and the Seaway

Wes is twenty-seven, out on his personal watercraft on the Saint Lawrence. Ahead, a freighter is working its way upriver in the shipping channel. There's a wide gap in front of its bow, and Wes figures he can shoot across with room to spare. From where he sits, the ship looks like it's barely moving.

So here's the question. Can Wes make that crossing, and even if he can, should he?

Transport Canada's Safe Boating Guide is blunt. Big ships have a harder time seeing you and changing course. They travel faster than you think, and they take longer to stop. There's a blind spot ahead of a large ship where you can disappear from view. So never cross in front of a larger vessel, and never go between a tug and its tow.

The Seaway's own pleasure craft guide says it in one line. If you cannot see the wheelhouse, you cannot be seen. It adds that ships pull a tremendous amount of water along with them, enough to make a small boat lose control, so stay well clear. And five short, rapid blasts from a ship means get out of the way, now.

Then the law. Under the Collision Regulations, in a narrow channel you keep to the starboard side, your right. A boat under twenty metres must not impede a vessel that can only navigate safely inside the channel. That's the rule to remember around freighters. Don't cross a channel if it would impede one, and don't anchor in a narrow channel.

Canada adds two rules that matter here. In a narrow channel with a current, when two power-driven vessels meet, the one going with the current is the stand-on vessel. And a boat crossing a river keeps out of the way of power-driven vessels going up or down it. Wes is crossing. The freighter is going up. Wes gives way.

The Seaway locks have their own rules. Boats under six metres, or under nine hundred kilograms, aren't allowed through. Don't overtake or pass within six hundred metres of a lock or canal entrance. Swimming, skiing, fishing and diving are banned in Seaway canals, channels and locks. And stay off the Seaway's working radio channels, except for emergencies on channel sixteen.

On the water. From a small boat, a freighter in the channel looks slow and far away, and it's easy to misjudge both. What I watch for is the wheelhouse. If I can't see it, that ship can't see me. So I idle a few minutes and cross well behind it. Waiting costs me nothing.

Let's change one fact. Wes's cousin has a nine-metre cruiser and wants to take it through a Seaway lock. It's big enough to go. But the Seaway's twenty twenty-six guide says everyone aboard must wear a lifejacket during the lock transit. And the personal watercraft stays home. At under six metres, it can't go through at all.

The mistake boaters make is assuming the ship will steer around them. It can't, not quickly, and in a narrow channel it may have nowhere to go. You're the one who can turn.

Here's the rule, in one breath. Keep right, don't impede a ship in its channel, never cross ahead of it or between a tug and its tow, and if you cannot see the wheelhouse, you cannot be seen.

This week, find the shipping channel on the chart for your usual route, and plan where you'll cross it, behind the traffic, not in front. Next time, paddlers, swimmers, divers, skiers, and carbon monoxide.