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Your car’s parked in the lot outside a roadside diner, well off the road, when a another vehicle pulling a trailer passes. As it passes the trailer breaks free and ploughs into your car, rupturing the petrol tank and spilling fuel. So the police arrest you because you should have assumed that the trailer would break free of the vehicle and parked somewhere else. That’s the sort of utter daftness today’s seafarers face daily and which 53 year old Captain JS Chawla of the Hebei Spirit faces today, so it’s a pleasure to report that while he waits under the threat of a $75,000 fine or up to a year in prison, he was announced one of two runners-up in the Lloyds List/Nautical Institute Shipmaster of the Year Award announced today, 2nd April.

Chawla deserves much kudos for the defense of his vessel, which you can read about here. An airline pilot in a comparable situation would have walked away with a medal in his hand, not convict’s stripes. It is to be hoped that the award might do something to publicise not only his plight, but those of other seafarers.

Says the Nautical Institute: “In a year when the trend to criminalise masters for unfortunate accidents has continued, it is not surprising that this case has become extremely contentious.”

The Shipmaster Of The Year award intends to: “…pay fitting tribute to a Master who has shown leadership, courage and vision while in command…”. Each of the 11 nominees had certainly earned their stripes and of the choice of the final three the Nautical Institute release says: “In judging, the panel recognized the special qualities the nominees brought to the wellbeing of crew and the commercial interests of the company, numerous initiatives to improve safety and operational performance, and cases of outstanding seamanship and leadership.”

Finally, the award went to Captain Alistair McFadyen of the 37,500 tonnes P&O ferry Pride Of Bilbao. This vessel, too, found lawyers on its gangplank in the past: The vessel’s second officer, Michael Hubble, found himself on three charges of manslaughter last year after the disappearance of the yacht Ouzo south of the Isle of Wight in 2006, which were dismissed.

Captain McFadyen’s award was for his command of the vessel “…during severe weather in the Bay of Biscay in March 2007. Over a period of 4 days, the P&O Ferry, Pride of Bilbao, encountered winds of Force 9 increasing to Storm Force 12, with waves and swell to match. The ship was hove to for many hours and skilfully manoeuvred to minimise risk of injury or damage.

“Throughout the ordeal Captain McFadyen kept the passengers and crew advised and ensured that the company was kept fully informed. The result was the safe completion of the voyage, satisfied customers, and a tired but professionally proud crew. The company were also commended for delaying the next scheduled sailing while the crew got some much-needed rest.”

The ubiquitous Youtube carries videos of the storm, and comments by some of the passengers here.

Scoring a “highly recommended” alongside Captain Chawla was Captain Chernobrovkin, master of the 47,326 DWT chemical product tanker MT Butterfly, who performed a tough mid-Atlantic rescue of a lone yachtsman in a winter gale.

Sadly, the kudos these men earned will inevitably pale against the current enthusiasm to prosecute seafarers so attorneys can bulk up their pension plans.

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This post was written by Bob Couttie of Maritime Accident Casebook. Bob Couttie has written for a number of maritime industry publications, including the prestigious Lloyd’s List International daily newspaper and Lloyd’s Ship Manager magazine. His reportage on problems with ship’s officer certification examinations in the Philippines in the late 1990s influenced the adoption of computerized examinations for ship officers by the country’s Professional Regulatory Commission.

The Seamanship Tutor has put together a series of simple computer animations that show various shiphandling techniques. The animations include search and rescue operations, use of an anchor and docking operations (among others). The full set of videos can be found HERE but we’ll share with you a short preview:

The Baltic Moor

To achieve the “Baltic Moor”, the vessel should approach parallel to the berth at about 1 to 1.5 ships lenghts with offshore anchor walked back and a stern mooring wire secured by bights, along the ships side, to the ganger length of cable.

 

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Our friend Peter Mello at Sea-Fever, a must read maritime blog, brings us the model building obsession of William Terra. This one stopped me cold for a number of reasons. First Battleships have been a personal obsession of mine since childhood and were the subject of the weapons presentation during my plebe year at Annapolis. Second, these “manned models” are an excellent (some say superior) alternative to simulators for shiphandling training. Last, if it comes from Sea-Fever it’s bound to be interesting.

In the post titled “The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming! (by pickup and trailer)” Sea-Fever writes;

Four years in the making and a few more needed to “complete” the project, Mr. Terra built a 1:20 scale, 30′, navigating model of the World War II German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. (Wikipedia entry) Per Bizmark & Tirpitz:

• The model is scratch built like a canoe using 2,54 - 10,16 cm (1 - 4 in) bass wood strips and then covered with fiberglass.
• Estimated weight 318 kg (700 lbs).
• The beam is 1,32 meter (52 in).
• The length is about 9,1 meter (30 foot).
• It can carry 2 persons.
• The model is powered by a 15 hp (11,2 kw) outboard engine under rear gun turret.
• It can sail 24 kilometer per hour (15 mph).
• Furthermore the model has a music system build in.
• While William Terra cruise the lakes of Maine he enjoys listening to Wagner.
• The Commander-in-Chief in the photographs is William Terra.
• William Terra would like to see more models build in this scale

Click HERE for photos and related links.

For those who are unaware, Port Revel in France and Massachusetts Maritime Academy both host shiphandling classes aboard diminutive versions of real life vessels. These classes are for Marine Pilots and senior maritime officers. BBC News tells us;

To the casual onlooker, it may look like a group of overgrown children sailing in rather extravagant model boats.

But, in fact, they are some of the shipping industry’s most experienced sea captains on one of the world’s most unusual safety training courses.

The lake in Marchwood, near Southampton, Hampshire, boasts a fleet of seven scaled-down model cargo ships on which veteran captains, pilots and senior deck officers can hone their skills.

The ships, which are big enough for two people to sit in, behave exactly like the real thing as they negotiate the 13-acre lake’s artificial channels and tides.

They range from a scaled version of a 300,000 tonne vessel that itself weighs in at six tonnes to a radio-controlled model tug.

So is this simply an excuse for taking some time off work to muck about on the water?

Having taken the class myself I can honestly say the answer is no.

Upon first arrival at the academy I was skeptical of the ability to learn advanced shiphandling techniques on a model that is a fraction the size and weight of the original, however, during my first “test drive” I quickly realized the value of this class. The reason it’s the best option for this type of training is two fold. First the alternative, bridge simulators, do not give you the “feel” of the water and fail to project the sense of emergency when things start to go wrong. This class however, uses real boats that happen to be very expensive and rare… knock one of these against pier and real damage will occur that you will feel it both in the seat of your pants and in your gut.

Second this training is valuable since, as Captain Clarke tells the BBC: “You cannot turn up at Fawley oil refinery in a ‘150,000-tonner’ and say I just want to do a few practice turns.”

To be honest with our readers I originally took the class because Advanced Shiphandling Training was a U.S. Coast Guard requirement for receiving my Unlimited Master’s (captain of large ships) License and Mass Maritime provided the training in half the time (just 5 days) required by the simulator based schools. I learned to love the class because it provides a unique hands on experience that allows you to test shiphandling theory at in accelerated and valuable way.

John Konrad is a USCG licensed Master Mariner of Unlimited Tonnage and the captain of this project. Since graduating from SUNY Maritime College he has sailed 4 of the world’s oceans and reports from his ship via satellite.

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