Oct 18, 2010
The Black Warrior River winds around with numerous hairpin and 90 degree turns. Numerous tugs pushing several barges also use this river with us.
Today, I experienced a very scary incident.. while standing at the helm looking straight out…as I began turning into a very tight 180 degree turn, I saw a barge full of rock appear directly in front of us…normally I would turn toward the inside bank giving the barges the outside of the turn..but, because the turn was so narrow and so sharp, the oncoming barge was all the way up against the inside bank. Next, I see the second barge across the front coming into view…I rammed the lever to full throttle and turned the wheel full left going across in front on the now three wide row of oncoming barges..the tug pushing the group of barges full of rock was still not in sight. We cleared the oncoming barges by just a few at full throttle. Had I not been standing at full attention and been able to respond immediately, this would have been a very serious incident.
We now announce on the VHF radio in advance of tight turns (shown on chart plotter) our direction,
southbound, and the mile marker of the turn on the chart…alerting any upcoming tows of our
Position..tows that are travelling in close proximity call us back..and we plan our approach.
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