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This time the Cosco Busan’s departure is not a drill and we made sure to get video evidence of the fact!

The San Francisco Chronicle tells us;

The U.S. Coast Guard said temporary repairs to the 900-foot Cosco Busan had been completed and that the vessel and the crew were cleared to sail. The ship passed under the Golden Gate Bridge around 11:30 a.m.

Meanwhile, Caltrans officials announced that repairs on the Bay Bridge fender that the ship hit and shattered also have been completed.

The Coast Guard had been concerned about the Cosco Busan’s seaworthiness and the crew’s training in bridge management. The agency also wanted to ensure that U.S. legal interests would be protected, because several lawsuits have been filed against the ship’s owner, Regal Stone Ltd. of Hong Kong, as well as its insurer and the man piloting the ship when the accident happened, John Cota.

Regal Stone has posted a bond for the ship’s $79.5 million value with the federal government. The agreement on the security bond does not limit how much the government can seek in damages from the spill.

The ship also has a $300 million insurance policy, which is a requirement under California law, said Steve Edinger, assistant chief of the Department of Fish and Game’s law enforcement division.

“The Cosco Busan has left, and everything we needed from the vessel for our investigation we did obtain,” said Edinger, whose agency oversaw the cleanup efforts. “We are progressing the way we would normally expect in (any) oil spill.” Continue Reading…

(Coast Guard video by District Eleven Public Affairs)

 

 http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=205346&g2_serialNumber=2 [0:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The San Francisco Chronicle has published the Pilot’s Report on the Cosco Busan Incident. Here are the parts of interest to mariners;

Meadows said problems also cropped up in “bridge management,” the communication between the pilot, who had years of experience on the bay, and the ship’s officers, who had never navigated the bay in the Cosco Busan. All were supposed to work together and exchange information on how to successfully navigate the harbor.
“While some information was exchanged, perhaps it could be said it wasn’t a full transfer of information. It was enough for the pilot to work with the master and get the ship ready for sea,” Meadows said.

We have previously reported on bridge management also know as Bridge Team Management or BRM.

gCaptain’s BRM related articles;

• Cosco Busan - Bridge Resource Management
• Environmental Catastrophe Possible Averted - M/V Pasha Bulker
  
• Pasha Bulker Incident Report - Nearly Unbelievable
• What Went Wrong Aboard the MV Pasha Bulker? (Telstar Logistics)

The article continues;

The Cosco Busan’s radar “conked out” twice - first before departure and again as the ship was near the lighthouse on Yerba Buena Island.

Cota was forced to rely on an electronic chart display, showing the track of the vessel and its speed, plus charts of San Francisco Bay. Meadows said the pilot told him he was “not familiar” with the electronic system on the Cosco Busan. “They are all different,” Meadows said.

Cota asked Mao Cai Sun, the captain of the Cosco Busan, to point on the display to the center of the bridge span between the Delta and Echo towers on the western side of the Bay Bridge.

“The master pointed that out,” Meadows said. “In fact, several times during the trip. That’s what the pilot was heading for.”

…

“The pilot had to go along with what the master indicated on the electronic chart display was the center of the span,” Meadows said. “That turned out to be the tower instead.”

We have received email asking; Should the vessel have left without a working radar? and Did the second radar work? …unfortunately those are questions we can’t answer. You will have to wait until the NTSB investigation report is complete.

Read the full SF Chronicle article HERE.

Related Maritime Blog Posts;

Pilot Terror by Bob Couttie