Passenger Ferry Collides With Cargo Ship Leaving 17 Dead

[Thomas]

I know when I am sailing, I always go by the rule of tonnage, if he is bigger than me, then he gots the right of way

Yes, even IF the smaller have right of way, the captain at the smaller is an idiot if he try to pass in front. because huge ships can change speed and turn so slow, so the biger one don't have chance to give way even if he would try to...

[bootleultras]

If its anything like other countries they should have a planned shipping route before they leave a port that guides them all the way out into open waters which they strictly have to follow, obviously not the case here!

[Markham]

Like the position the vessels are meant to pass each other and is there something like air traffic control except for sea vessels?

 

Shipping leaving and entering the port of Cebu do so via the rather narrow lanes of a separation scheme whose southern entrance/exit is abeam of Talisay. Those traffic lanes are necessarily narrow because that stretch of water is littered with wrecks, shoals and reefs and there's a large Mangrove swamp on the Mactan side (shown in green on the 'chart' below):

 

 

As you can see, the separation scheme requires that Cebu-bound shipping keep to the Mactan side whilst outbound ships to the Talisay side; thus ships pass "port to port", one of the basic laws of the sea. The large white area is comparatively deep, more than 10 fathoms (60 feet), and the increasing blue shaded areas denote increasingly shallow water. Depths are marked in fathoms (1 fathom = 6 feet) and subscripted numbers represent feet - so "6₄" means "6 fathoms and 4 feet" and "0₃" shows where the water depth is just 3 feet.

 

Philippine academies do turn-out great seafarers but very, very few work in the local shipping industry.

[bootleultras]

If you're a ships captain, that map makes great sense.... To the rest of us it looks like rubbish'