I sailed a small boat across the Pacific with two other people.
Before setting out we got some advice from an acquaintance who was also a small boat sailor.
He was also an experienced captain on a merchant ship with a large, well known company sailing regular routes back and forth across the Pacific.
He said that in his experience many merchant vessels do not keep a constant lookout or radio watch at sea in spite of the law requiring them to do so.
He recommended on taking evasive action immediately upon sighting a large vessel.
He said when he is sailing his sailboat and spots a large vessel, especially a merchant vessel,
as soon as he can discern their course he alters his course to about a 90 degree angle to theirs.
It puts as much distance as possible between the two vessels and eliminates any doubt on the
other ship as to your course and intentions (assuming they have a lookout).
Especially at night.
And that turned out to be good advice as we encountered large vessels at night with no effective
visible lights and no answer to our radio call.
Thankfully we had a small boat radar and could pick them up, calculate their course and take evasive action.
Perhaps the Navy needs to make Capt. Trimmer's classic How to Avoid Huge Ships required reading. Check out the reviews on Amazon. For example, "After reading Capt. Trimmer's book, the largest thing I've been hit by is a diesel bus".
Yet, you were able to avoid a disaster with one person on watch with an over the counter radar set up unlike a big bad US Navy destroyer with a dozen on watch with all the latest top secret equipment. It's not just fishy but rotten fishy.