Every week, we present you with a question about your boating license. To help you validate your knowledge, or to discover new and unexplored areas. This week, we tackle a question on the rules of the helm.
Don't confuse deposit and recovery
You have to distinguish between bearing and bearing. When I sail on the beige boat and use my compass to aim at it, I'm measuring the bearing of the red boat. If, on the other hand, I take a fixed point on my boat (stanchion, cleat, shroud...), I can track the bearing of the red boat over time. Bearing does not take course into account. It is very useful for checking that 2 boats are not on a collision course.
Fixed or progressive bearing?
In my example, I'm sailing on the beige boat and I can see the bearing of the red boat, which is not changing. On the diagram, it's still at 45°. If neither boat changes course, collision is inevitable.
Conversely, if the bearing changes gradually over time, in our example 45°, 70° then 100°, the two routes will not intersect at a collision point. The red boat was faster.
For this permitted question, which indicates that the bearing is not changing, answer A.
