Customer Reviews

How to Avoid Huge Ships

5 star:		(114)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I bought How to Avoid Huge Ships as a companion to Captain Trimmer's other excellent books: How to Avoid a Train, and How to Avoid the Empire State Building. These books are fast paced, well written and the hard won knowledge found in them is as inspirational as it is informational. After reading them I haven't been hit by anything bigger than a diesel bus. Thanks, captain!

Read this book before going on vacation and I couldn't find my cruise liner in the port. Vacation ruined.

I live near a park and frequently walk around the local area. Given the amount of dog mess that is on the pavements I thought this book would be the ideal read to stop me having to scrape my shoes on the grass before going home. It was only after it arrived that I looked closely at the title and realised it said 'How to Avoid Huge SHIPS'. A simple error that means I am still treading on massive examples of canine excrement. Having said that, I read the book anyway, and I'm pleased to say I'm not even having near misses with huge ships anymore. No sir, they aint getting anywhere near me!

I'm a little annoyed with the sarcastic "reviewers" of this book. You all seem to think it's funny that some people would honestly like some expert advice on ways to avoid huge ships. What, you've never been traveling at a very, very slow speed straight toward something really, really big that you could see for miles and miles away, and wished you'd known what steps you could take to avoid crashing into it? Well, all I can say is "congratulations!" What's it like to be so perfect? You haters just keep on enjoying your huge-ship-collision-free little fantasies. I for one am going to buy this book and learn something, because I live in the real world, where huge ships and the dangers they present to people like me are actually a serious issue.

As the father of two teenagers, I found this book invaluable. I'm sure other parents here can empathize when I say I shudder at the thought of the increasing influence and presence of huge ships in the lives my children. I certainly remember the strain I caused so long ago for my own parents when I began experimenting with huge ships. The long inter-continental voyages that kept my mom and dad up all night with worry. Don't even get me started on the international protocols when transporting perishable cargo. To think, I was even younger then than my kids are now! huge ships are everywhere and it doesn't help that the tv and movies make huge ships seem glamorous and cool. This book helped me really approach the subject of huge ships with my kids in an honest, open and non judgmental way. Because of the insights this book provided, I can sleep a little better and cope with the reality that I can't always be there to protect my kids from huge ships, especially as they become adults. I'm confident that my teens, when confronted by a huge ship, are much better prepared to make wiser decisions than I did. At the very least my children certainly know that they can always come to me if they have any concerns, questions or just need my support when it comes to the topic of huge ships.

I ran into this book after I saw a reference to it online. Seemed like a joke at the time, until I read it. Actually, it's perfectly serious and the title is completely accurate when it gets down to reading the book. All jokes aside, it's a serious piece of work for the small boat owner / operator - especially those taking their boats into areas where large ships pass through.

This book was "written by an old captain who was tired of running over fools in their pleasure boats, and wanted to educate those same fools in a futile effort to save their lives". Very apt description. As a more or less novice to boating, it never really ocurred to me that (make that "I never thought about it") most small pleasure boats that go a reasonable distance offshore are actually far slower than large merchant ships and thus can get overtaken and rundown quite easily. Oooops. And large merchant ships might not even notice. Bigger Ooooppps. Like the cargo ship that turned up in Yokohama with a yacht mast tucked under the anchor at the bow. Never did identify the yacht. Makes you think a bit doesn't it.

So the author very kindly wrote a complete book about how not to get run down. I found it very informative and if I ever do get far enough offshore that I'm getting into commercial shipping lanes, I'll be studying this book a lot more seriously. The writer's tone comes across as more than a bit cynical, as well as perhaps unintentionally humorous - or maybe just a very dry sense of humor, whatever. On the other hand, the book's written with a serious objective in mind - informing the ignorant small boat operator - and it does that very well indeed.

Well worth the read if you're an offshore sailor/boater. Even if you're not, it's a very interesting read - you will certainly realize some of the limitations large ships operate under and take good care to keep well away from them in future, even if you live in the Mid-West!

This book really is one of the best huge ship avoidance references I've come across, not just for the effective methods it teaches as to avoiding huge ships, but also for exploding some of the huge ship avoidance myths that many of us take for granted.

For example:
- Do not charge the huge ship at full speed in an attempt to scare it off. This may work with coyotes, but it is less effective with huge ships.
- Similarly, do not roll your boat over and play dead. Unless the huge ship is captained by a grizzly bear, this will not work.
- Do not attempt to go under the huge ship. This is typically not successful.
- Do not attempt to jump over the huge ship.

Captain Trimmer presents a rather novel technique for avoiding huge ships - move your boat out of the path of the huge ship. I know what you're thinking, this goes against conventional wisdom, but Trimmer presents significant empirical evidence to support his theory. Indeed, over the long run, moving out of the way will dramatically decrease the number of huge ship collisions you will have to endure in your daily life.

I am a huge ship. Imagine having an entire book devoted toward actively avoiding you and your kind. I have always been bigger than other ships - and yes, I have endured years of being moared in the distance, never being able to enter the shallower bays, requiring tugs to guide me in - but now THIS! Mr. Trimmer, you sir, should be ashamed! Please do not be swayed by his drivel. I ask that you judge me not by the size of my cargo hatch but rather the content of my wheelhouse.

After reading this book, I relized exactly what I was doing wrong everytime I was run over by bardges on the mighty Mississippi. I always played dead and hoped the boats would go away, like I was taught by a book I read, "How To Survive Bear Attacks." I guess I thought the lessons taught by that book applied to everything life, but it clearly meant just bears. Now I am surviving the waterways better than a BP oil rig.

I give this book five stars because it is by far the best treatise to date regarding the avoidance of huge ships. BUT C'MON, PEOPLE! Did you learn nothing in the sixties? Avoiding huge ships won't solve the problem. Separate but equal waterways only drives us further apart. It is the lack of understanding between the huge and non-huge vessel communities that lead to well-intentioned but misguided tomes such as this. We must begin a dialogue with our huge brethren. Remember--we are all floating on the same ocean. I have a dream... that one day ALL vessels will be judged not by their tonnage, but by the content of their cargo. Next time a huge vessel approaches, just ask yourself "WWPD?" (What would Popeye do?)