Day 38 – Ghost ship collision

7 Apr, 07 – 21.30    
17.3646N,34.2069W
24 hr progress: 18 Nautical Miles
Distance left to Antigua: 1565 Nautical Miles ( 2928.5 km)
(Note: 1 Nautical Mile = 1.85 km

Long story short. This afternoon, a cargo ship came within 100 ft of running me over.
I was getting some sleep and was woken up when the boat violently rolled from side to side throwing me onto the equipment inside the cabin. Looked out of the hatch to find blue sky replaced by a 300 ft bulk of floating metal crossing the bow of the boat 100 ft away.
My first reaction was that it's an hallucination. Maybe a reflection? I had no warning from the radar alarm or the VHF. I was not expecting to see a ship for days, as I had passed the Recife-Bishop Rock shipping lane days ago and am miles from the NY-Capetown shipping lane. Nor did I hear the approaching engines as the hatch was closed.
As I got on deck, all I could see was the stern of a large old rust bucket cargo ship moving away, leaving the boat rolling from side to side in the wake. I got on the VHF radio and as it turned out, the crew was from China and they barely spoke any English. I managed to gather that their excuse for not seeing me was something to do with their radar being switched off.
They probably wondered what I was doing in the middle of the Atlantic.
I was just about to ask them (the Chinese crew) the same thing.
They were reluctant to tell me any more details about their port or destination or cargo, but from their bearing I gathered there were going on an unmarked route, possibly Brazil.
After a fair barrage of expletives from me, they sort of apologized and disappeared over the horizon after about 15 minutes, leaving me a bit shaken up for the rest of the day.
If they had radar and yet not seen me, I would STILL have been able to make sure that they were aware of my presence in the vicinity either on VHF or using flares.
Dealing with ships without a radar poses a different set of problems and is quite disturbing.
Hoping that this was a freak incident.
Progress was only 18 miles. Painfully slow without the rudder. To top it off, I've cut a finger to the bone while trying to cut open a tin of peaches. They looked like peaches in grape juice after the blood fell into the tin. What a crap day.
B
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Near miss