Allision - Nautical Word of the Day

I'm not a mariner, nor am I familiar with "rules of the road" for ships, boats, and other seagoing craft. Nor am I familiar with the responsibility of the ship's Master or the authorities who build bridge piers in the midst of navigable waters.

I am but a simple, but well-informed, citizen of the San Francisco Bay Area.

While Mr. Tylawski may well be correct in stating Maritime Law as it relates to a ship hitting a bridge pier (or it's fendering system) -- his words strike me as classroom theory, not reality in the present instance of a 900 foot ship hitting the fendering system of the Bay Bridge.

The bridge and it's piers have been in their present locations since 1936 (actually earlier, during the construction) and local Maritime rules-of-the-road have long since been established to guide mariners safely between the piers without hitting any fixed objects. And, the fendering system was recently upgraded and completely rebuilt by the State of California Department of Transportation and it's contractor. There's been no mention of the fendering system having been previously damaged and being in the well-defined shipping channel -- because it wasn't previously damaged, and wasn't in the channel.

So, while Mr. Tylawski's words may be a correct statement of maritime law and common practice, it's misleading to me and members of the public to hear (read) his dissertation, without reference to the actual event of the Cosco Busan hitting the fixed object.

It might have been more helpful to those of us in the public -- who could easily find this site through a search -- if he had said that he was describing a theoretical circumstance, and his words actually had no real relevance to the Cosco Busan incident. He leaves me with the impression that it is his opinion that there is some doubt about whether the bridge owner or the ship's owner is legally responsible for the allision.

I'm sure he had no intention of leaving that impression. But I'm curious why he would describe this aspect of maritime law in a thread relating to the Cosco Busan, without being entirely clear that his statement wasn't meant to describe his views of what happened in this accident.

Jerry Mendes
San Francisco, California

Fergus, good catch but don't forget the temperature!

Here is a thought to ponder on if you like :

With regard to fuel, when refering to volumes - whether bunkering, daily consumption, heating, transfering or tank capacity of same - ship's officers normally and consistently speak in tonnes ... not gallons. Consider the spillage figure of 140 as provided to the USCG by one of the vessel's complement : had this been (correctly) interpreted as tonnes the approximate corresponding gallons would be the product of gallons per barrel times barrels per ton i.e. 56 x 7.2 x 140 resulting in a rough estimate of 56,000 gals.

Allision is a good word, not used in it's correct context very often! Not to be confused with Allusion!

Thanks Mr. Rogers:

Allision - that's a big word. Can you say that?