It’s been a bad week for lifeboats, once termed ‘the Pinto of the seas’. Over at Maritime Accident Casebook three incidents during drills and training have come to light, two on offshore platforms, one at an onshore training facility. All are currently under investigation and therefore sort of subjudice but in one case the lowering of a davit-launched lifeboat was halted due to a problem with the falls. Confused radio communications between those inside the boat and the person lowering the lifeboat apparently made those inside believe they were on the water and that the hydrostatic release had malfunctioned, so they over-rode the hydrostatic release and the boat fell a considerable distance into the water, causing a number of injuries.

Investigators will probably concentrate on three elements: the fouling of the cable, the radio communications problem, and the over-riding of the hydrostatic release. Inadequate training and drills is likely to surface as a root cause.

Cosco Busan, every San Franciscan’s favourite hate-object, is very much in the news. Setting aside the issue of the pilot’s medication, there are lots of lessons worth learning or re-learning. The latest Maritime Accident Casebook podcast, The Case of the Foggy Pilot, looks at bridge team management, how to get information out of a cranky pilot and how to ask and answer questions. After all, if you don’t ask a question right, you’re not asking the right question. [Continue Reading →]

Hot on the heels of our featured stories “5 Most Ambitious Bridge Designs of Today” and “Windoc Incident – Story Behind YouTube’s Most Chilling Video” our digg friend msaleem points us to this post titled. “Most Horrific Bridge Collapses of Past 100 Years”

The article contains many pictures and can be found HERE.

This article, is just one of thousands of interesting posts found in our maritime archives. Click HERE to browse the archive of articles gCaptain has  published in the last three years.

Information Dissemination brings us the news of the USS New Orleans and The USS Hartford colliding in the Straight of Hormuz: [Continue Reading →]

(Image courtesy: Press-Telegram)

NOAA ship strike reduction rule made major strides recently with its passing of a 10 knot speed limit for large vessels near various high traffic ports along the east coast, however, covering just one of our coasts with a speed limit is only half (at best) the battle.

This past weekend, a large container ship struck and killed a 48-foot fin whale while traversing a major shipping lane leading to the port of Long Beach.  With no knowledge to the captain, the vessel proceed to the port with the whale carcass slumped over its bow.

While the west coast doesn’t have the highly endangered right whale population of the east coast, large vessels pose the same threats to fin whales and blue whales.  Critics say that without a speed limit imposed, fatal collisions with blue and fin whales will continue to occur.

December 10, 2007 – Upon departure from Montevideo on The Rio de la Plata, the M/V Norwegian Dream fully loaded with passengers on a 23 day cruise, collided with an adrift container barge.  Despite valiant efforts the collision could not be avoided.

Both vessels suffered severe damage.  The barge lost multiple autos and containers overboard with loss and damage estimated in the millions.  The M/V Norwegian Dream suffered a four-by-four foot hole in the bow about five feet above the water line, and was quickly returned to Montevideo for repairs.

As for the passengers, they were offered some compensation for the mishap but continued on after the repairs were made.

More information on this incident can be found at CargoLaw.

Another interesting note… The Norwegian Dream is now a two-time Incident Photo of The Week’er.  Check out the first incident HERE.

Like one of those awkward moments you get when rushing on a busy sidewalk, M/V Grande Nigeria and M/V Nada V just couldn’t seem to pick sides and suffered a head on collision.

More information and photos of this incident can be found at CargoLaw.

The Windoc blocks the canal. Alex Howard

In August 2001 the Bulk Carrier Windoc was lined up on the Welland Canal’s Bridge 11 in Ontario Canada. After recieving the flashing amber approach light indicating that the bridge operator was aware of the vessel the captain lined up on the centerline and maintained a speed of 5 knots. Minutes later while the vessel was half way through the bridge started descending.

The Bridge Team’s Story

When the vessel was approximately halfway under the bridge, the third officer observed that the bridge signal lights were solid red and the lift span was descending. At 2053, the master sounded a few blasts on the ship’s whistle. The master, without identifying himself or the bridge in question, called the TCC on VHF channel 14 about the lowering of the bridge. The master quickly stopped the engines and ordered an evacuation of the wheelhouse.The master and third officer left the wheelhouse by the starboard navigation bridge wing. As they proceeded down the external bridge access ladder, the span of the bridge struck the vessel in way of the wheelhouse front windows, subsequently destroying the vessel’s wheelhouse and funnel. The wheelsman remained at his station in the wheelhouse and lay down on the deck as the bridge span passed overhead. He freed himself from the debris and descended by the deckhouse stairwell alive.

Miraculously no one was killed in the event. [Continue Reading →]

SAN FRANCISCO, Calf. – The United Stated Coast Guard is responding to a tug and barge allision with the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.  At approximately 6pm the tug and barge were headed outbound from Rodeo when it struck the east piling of the west span of the Richmond Bridge. The barge capacity is 65,195 barrels of heavy black oil and the ship’s crew reported no pollution on scene.  Coast Guard boarding teams and small boat are on scene verifying that no pollution was released into the environment and the Coast Guard investigation has begun.  All affected city, county and state first responders in the surrounding area including California Department of Fish and Game Office of Spill Prevention and Response, Richmond Police Department HAZMAT, California Office of Emergency Services, CAL TRANS, and California Highway Patrol have been notified and several of these agencies are responding to this incident. The companies contracted two oil response vessels were on scene within an hour of the allision. USCG District 11

Our friends Jim Herd of the SFist and Carl Nolte of SFGate have further coverage of the incident.

First a note… I am publishing this short clip ahead of my next article because of its importance!

While preparing our upcoming “questions for investigators” article on the Cosco Busan incident we were asked by more than one party a question along this line; with communications failure being a leading cause of incidents and the crew of the Cosco Busan being Chinese of limited english skills (they required translators during the investigation) why do incidents of this type not happen more often?

The answer is Bridge Team Management.

Ok… so what is BRM? Simply because it’s an increase focus of incident investigation and watchkeeping.

Revisiting a previous post I state:

• Bridge Team (or resource) Management (called BRM in the industry) is a process to use all of your available resources during critical operations. It came from the airline industry which found an alarming number of accidents happened despite prior warning from the equipment or crew…. mostly by captains with military backgrounds and a “I can do this” attitude who did not fully use critical information from either the equipment or junior personnel.Boiled down it’s a class all officers must take in both teamwork and processing the large amounts of data (lookout reports, radar, radio comms, gps charting, weather information….) that pours into the bridge.
• Here’s a more official answer:The Bridge Team Management course introduces the concept of a navigation team to ship masters and watch officers and frames their decision making process toward establishing watch conditions during the course of the voyage. Bridge Team Management techniques will emphasize decision making based upon conditions related to workload and potential threat to the vessel. The intent of the program is to define the individual task and responsibilities of the various team members while developing a situational awareness to prevent individual errors.

In stating the importance of this post I am looking at the media reaction to the incident. In reporting disasters the public is often not satisfied until a single individual is blamed…. quickly. This was the case in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Tampa Skyway Bridge Disaster and even in the early reports on the Empress of the North grounding where fault was placed on the Jr. Officer on watch who was only weeks out of the Maritime Academy. In the Empress of the North incident gCaptain broke from traditional media and laid the blame on management techniques rather than the “green” officer and we are happy to report he was recently clear of all charges (as was Capt. Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez).

It is clear to us the Cosco Busan allided with the Bay Bridge because of a breakdown in Bridge Team Management. For example while VTS contacted the ship questing its course did the mate on watch, captain, helmsman or assist tug captain also voice concern? Was the equipment operational and set up properly? As the primary fault for the Exxon Valdez incident was not with Captain Hazelwood (he was cleared of charges and his license was reinstated) John Cota, Pilot aboard the Cosco Busan is not solely at fault for this incident.

The team failed the Cosco Busan not the ship’s Chinese Captain or American Pilot alone. Lets just hope the court of public opinion does not convict either person before the long and thorough investigation is completed. Otherwise they might stand the fate of Captain Hazelwood, cleared of charges and fully licensed to pilot a ship but unable to find a company willing to hire him.

________

Asking yourself how a ship 131 wide could have such trouble in a channel 737 metres wide? Read a more unbelievable story HERE then watch the amazing slideshow HERE.

UPDATE: Bob Couttie of the Maritime Accident Casebook has a very interesting article along similar lines. You can find it HERE.

UPDATE 2:
Criminal probe opened in Bay oil spill

The entire crew of the cargo ship that sideswiped a bridge, causing San Francisco Bay’s worst oil spill in nearly two decades, has been detained as part of a criminal investigation, a Coast Guard official said Sunday.

Capt. William Uberti said he notified the U.S. attorney’s office on Saturday about issues involving management and communication among members of the bridge crew: the helmsman, the watch officer, the ship’s master and the pilot.

In covering the recent San Francisco Bay Bridge incident I have noticed most (but not all) of the news articles have made a small error in terminology. In describing the incident where the Cosco Busan hit the Bay Bridge many prominent news organizations referred to event as a collision when in fact it was an allision.

For clarification: A vessel collides with another moving vessel…. A vessel allides with a fixed object (unless it is submerged) and is presumed at fault.

Marine Dictionary – Allision

For those interested in learning more about the allision here are some good links;

• San Francisco Bay Bridge – gCaptain coverage
• Ooops! Container Ship Collides with SF Bay Bridge
• Bridge Left Undamaged
• Chief Engineer Underestimates Environmental Impact
• Two Coasts – Two Allisions | MAREX
• Official Coast Guard Cosco Busan Updates (right column)
• Shipping firms to pay for oil spill
• San Francisco Shuts Beaches After Ship Spills Fuel
  

For future articles stay tuned with our Maritime News Discoverer’s Upcoming Links

Here is a photo of the environmental damage;

Kurt Rogers / San Francisco Chronicle

Update: [Continue Reading →]