17 June 2009, Dover, England.

The fog never materialized and the haziness left us when we were about 20 miles north of Alderney, the last one of the Channel Islands. By hugging the French coast, as required by the Vessel Traffic separation scheme in the area, we steered a North Easterly course heading for a point opposite Dover. This might sound strange but you are not allowed to sail under an angle towards Dover although this would be the shortest distance. You have to follow the traffic lanes and then the rules require that you cross the traffic lanes on a right angle. Or at least as much as possible under a right angle.

This gives two challenges, First you have to move out of your own traffic lane, so you have to be careful not to cut in front of the bow of a ship still behind you and that is going faster; and secondly you have to avoid all the traffic coming down in the other lane. They come in from starboard and thus have the right of way. Hence the reason that the rules say, that you have to cross on a 90 degree angle to the traffic lane as much as possible. It is of course not the idea to create a collision by going exactly for the 90 degrees. Although these rules have been established long time ago, there are still amateurs out there who want to do their own thing and therefore the Dover Channel is watched over by traffic control stations. The French side is called Cap Gris Nez traffic and English side is called Dover Coast Guard. All ships call in when they pass through the area and the stations hand you over from one to the other. So when you call Cap Gris Nez., Dover knows at the same time that you are coming.

I prefer to cross the channel on full maneuvering speed to be able to slow down without any delay. Most of the time a course change will take care of any traffic issues but sometimes the better option, or only option, is to slow down or stop and let the other traffic go by. If there is much traffic then getting across can be quite a puzzle and a nice challenge. On our radars we have a trial maneuver function on which we can simulate what the result of a planned maneuver will be before we do it. Provided of course that the other ships are not doing something different in the meantime. We use that of course but I also like the officers to eye ball the situation and make up a picture in their mind of what should work before they check it with the trial maneuver. Training this way gives you a good experience for the case that one day, you do not have all the gadgets available and have to go back to basics and or make a quick decision.

Overview of the VTS system in the English channel. Diagram courtesy of Dover Coast Guard.

So the Officer of the Watch made up his mind, trialed his plan and there we went. In the end one course change made us go through a gap in the steady stream of ships keeping all at a mile, except the Dover – Calais ferries. With them the deal is more or less, that they will avoid you and they let you know that. They cross the channel at full speed, stay as close to their track lines as possible, in order to maintain their time schedule, and just zip past your bow or your stern. Thus while we happily avoided all the ships, we were over taken on both sides by ferries racing to Dover.

Dover pilot was onboard exactly on schedule and with the White Cliffs of Dover towering over us in perfect sunshine we slipped into the harbour, docking at the cruise terminal.
Today we had a cruise travel convention onboard with about 200 guests and I had the opportunity to meet John Heald, Carnival Cruise Director also being the world famous cruise blogger.

I spent most of the afternoon in bed as it had been a very early morning and tonight will be a very late night and tomorrow a very early morning. Departure for Dover is set at 23.00 hrs and arrival Zeebrugge pilot will be at 06.00 with an hour forward during the night was well. If I catch 3 hours sleep in between it will be good.