According to Bloomberg news, this may not be the full truth. In an article published this week, Bloomberg suggests that China is looking to control the movement of iron to protect the country’s domestic steel mills. Huang Wenlong, an analyst with BOC International Holdings Ltd, told reporters, “Once Vale moves its own iron ore, its control on the supply of iron ore extends into shipping, further diminishing Chinese steelmakers’ bargaining power… That is a situation China doesn’t want to see.”

The article further states that Vale’s plan to build 35 mega-ships will flood the bulk-shipping market and is actively opposed by Chinese shipping lines, shipowners and steelmakers. They tell us:

Vale has held talks with Chinese shipping lines about selling or leasing the about 360-meter-long vessels, Teddy Tang, the chief financial officer of its China operations, said in September. No deals had been reached.

The China Shipowners Association, whose members hold about 80 percent of the nation’s shipping capacity, has advised lines not to take the vessels, said Executive Vice Chairman Zhang Shouguo. “The most important thing for Vale is to stop building,” said Zhang, a former deputy director in the transport ministry’s shipping division. “The additional capacity will exacerbate the already bad freight market.”

In addition to protecting commercial interests China may have another reason for blocking shipments. According to a senior military analyst gCaptain spoke with, China is actively building naval platforms to assert its supremacy in the region and this move “might signify China’s desire to foster the development of raw materials within its sphere of influence.”

(c) 2010 Robert Almeida Photography

Image taken by Rob Almeida at Galena Park, Houston.  This bulk carrier was taking on grain bound for Port Sudan.

The ship that made gCaptain famous is back in the headlines. The M/V Pasha Bulker, a 76,741 deadweight ton Panamax bulk carrier launched in 2006, is the subject of a new report from NSW Maritime of Australia. The enormous vessel first made world headlines after running aground on a popular Australian beach in June of this year and since that time rumors to the cause of here dramatic grounding have been circling the media. Today the official report has been issued. Our friend and deputy gCaptain reporter Ian points us to NSW Maritime’s Press Release;

The Pasha Bulker ran aground during the once-in-thirty year storm that struck the Central Coast and Newcastle on June 8.

The same storm took nine lives and caused damage estimated to cost $1.35 billion.

Ports Minister Joe Tripodi said the investigation found the grounding of the Pasha Bulker was caused by a combination of horrendous weather conditions and poor seamanship by the Master of the vessel.

The poor seamanship involved his actions leading up to and on the morning of June 8. Continue Reading…

We will be working with veteran maritime incident reporter Bob Couttie to keep you updated on this important news item. For those new to this site, be sure to look back at the amazing photos and some of our previous posts on this amazing story.

PASHA BULKER INVESTIGATION REPORT – FACT SHEET

What did the report investigate?

NSW Maritime investigated two marine accidents under the Marine Safety Act 1998 – the Pasha Bulker grounding and difficulties encountered by the Sea Confidence. The Betis, which also encountered difficulties, was outside state waters.

What happened to cause the grounding?

The investigation found the grounding was caused by a series of poor judgments and decisions made by the vessel’s Master, notably:

• A failure to realise the potential impact on the Pasha Bulker of the weather forecast in the anchorage on 8 June;

• An initial decision to ride out the gale at anchor and not to heed the caution within the Sailing Directions regarding suitability of the anchorage in the forecast weather conditions; and

• A decision not to ballast the ship for heavy weather.

Why not prosecute the Master of the Pasha Bulker?

The investigation found there is some evidence the Master may have committed the offense of negligent navigation under the Water Traffic Regulations (NSW).

On examining the evidence and the elements of the offense that must be proven to the criminal standard, that is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, the likelihood of a successful prosecution is low.

Given this conclusion, and after applying the Prosecution Guidelines of the Office of the Director of the Public Prosecutions for NSW, NSW Maritime will not proceed to a prosecution.

What about weather warnings?

All ships received weather forecasts as early as 3 June, with at least 10 wind warnings issued, as well as routine weather forecasts via radio.

47 vessels left the Newcastle anchorage between 2200 on 7 June and 0700 on 8 June. By 7am on 8 June, nine ships remained including the Pasha Bulker, the Sea Confidence and the Betis.

The Master of the Pasha Bulker stated he was aware of the gale warning as early as 3 June, reviewed the forecast on June 7 and assessed the gale incorrectly as “very far away.”

While eventually attempting to head to sea at 7am on 8 June, he crucially left the bridge for breakfast at 8am.

What about the issue of ballast?

The report notes all three ships discussed were properly ballasted for fair weather and normal anchorage conditions. In terms of ballast, the issue was the failure by the Masters to take on sufficient extra ballast to deal with the weather conditions forecast for the anchorage.

What are the recommendations in the Report?

The Report makes a number of recommendations to help prevent similar incidents – all of which will be adopted:

• For the Government to bring concerns over the Master’s performance to the authority that issued his qualifications seeking they be reviewed;

• For NSW Maritime to investigate standard operating procedures for towing vessels in bad weather;

• For NSW Maritime to review the Port Safety Operating Licence;

• For the Marine Safety Act 1998 to be amended for higher penalties for negligent navigation offences involving seagoing vessels;

• For NSW Maritime and the three NSW Port Corporations to review port limits and the management of anchorages;

• That the Marine Pollution Act 1987 be amended to allow a direction to be made by transmitting it to a ship by any means and receiving acknowledgement by a person on the ship; and

• That Newcastle Port Corporation introduces a procedure to check all communications recording devices are checked every shift.

How will the Government respond?

In implementing the recommendations, the NSW Government will bring forward legislation to:

• Increase the penalty for negligent navigation of a Seagoing Vessel to $110,000;

• Provide jail terms for negligent, reckless or dangerous navigation that causes death or grievous bodily harm; and

• Provide the NSW Marine Pollution Controller with power to give verbal directions to ships.

(Source: NSW Maritime)

In a post unusually harsh for gCaptain standards I asked some tough questions about actions taken by the captain of the doomed ship, Pasha Bulker. Here’s a recap;

…did the crew used their satellite comms to discuss the weather patterns with meteorologists or did they simply ignore the port authority’s warnings? Did the captain use his AIS to identify the surrounding ships and call fellow captains via GMDSS to discuss the situation? Did they have access to and use real-time weather data or wait for a 2-dimensional weather fax?

(read the full article HERE)

Today in a leaked version of the incident report the answer is clearly no.

In a candid interview with investigators the vessel’s captain disclosed his actions in the critical moments between weighing anchor and the ship’s grounding. Take a deep breath as you may find this hard to believe. He was eating breakfast! In the galley!!

Here’s a rundown of events as report by The Sydney Morning Herald (full article located HERE)

The trail of mistakes and incompetence began on the evening of June 7 when warnings about an approaching storm were issued to 56 ships anchored off Newcastle. The Pasha Bulker, waiting to load 58,000 tonnes of coal, was one of 10 ships whose captains chose to stay at anchor about 200 metres off Stockton Beach to assess the situation overnight.

At 5.30 the next morning authorities tried again, but the Pasha Bulker stayed at anchor. It was not until 7am, in a sea whipped up by 100kmh winds, that the captain realised he had to move, and move quickly.

46 ships decide to leave port to avoid dragging anchor in an unprotected harbor and the Pasha Bulker stays, while this action is questionable the decision is not necessarily breaking the rule of prudent seamanship. The next morning Port Authorities “try again” to evict the remaining ships. I do not have details on the warning but it’s normal procedure to give the availability of tug boats that could help a ship in danger. Either way rescue tugs never showed and were apparently not requested by the captain.

At this point the captain became a danger to the vessel and crew. A master’s disagreement with port authority suggestions is understandable and the choice to ignore the warnings are his prerogative but one necessary step was not taken; vigilance. This is the time for a captain to ask himself the questions mentioned above, this is the moment to question your own decision, this is your chance to solidify a bridge team management plan and put the crew on high alert.

The story continues;

As the Sea Confidence, a nearby vessel facing the same predicament began moving out to sea with its anchors still dragging, the Pasha Bulker stayed and attempted to weigh anchor before moving. Mariners say it is standard practice for a boat (sic) to be moved forward slowly to help raise the heavy chain from the seabed while it is being hauled in. It meant the ship would have already moved through the surf in the 10 minutes it would have taken to get the anchor aboard.

In an emergency, such as the one brewing by the 30-year storm, the anchors should be cut and left behind.

Instead, the captain ordered the engines to remain idle while the chain, up to 200 metres long with links each weighing 100 kilograms, was winched aboard. As a consequence, the ship was still in the danger zone an hour later when the anchor was finally shipped.

Here I take exception to the article. While the Chief Mate might have been able to release the anchor brake and allow the chain to fully pay out (the more appropriate action), there is no quick and simple way to cut an anchor chain the size of the Pasha Bulker’s. The decision made aboard Sea Confidence would have been more appropriate to the situation. While some shiphadling ability is lost if the anchor is left down (due to a movement of the vessel’s pivot point forward) the Pasha Bulker has plenty of reserve power and steerage to overcome any serious problem.

It was now just after 8am. With the winds and seas continuing to rise and the engine only just beginning to move the ship, the captain called the chief engineer and invited him to breakfast. Both were Korean in a 22-man crew otherwise made up of Filipinos. They met in the dining room while others were left in charge of moving the vessel through the dangerous conditions.

The Pasha Bulker, now in the hands of less experienced crew, was shunted north along the coast toward Port Stephens, unable to make much headway against the waves. It had traveled about three kilometres before the captain reappeared on the bridge and took command of his ship, which was now out of control.

Was the captain called by the mate on watch when his inability to make positive headway was identified? If the mate on watch was exceptional and the answer to the question is no… the captain might not have been reckless in making this bad decision.

At 8.30am the ship had been looped in almost a full circle by the power of 18-metre waves and was now headed toward Nobbys Beach on the outside of the southern entrance to the port.

The captain, in a panic as he told investigators in the offices of a Newcastle law firm, made one last desperate attempt to save his ship, but again made an error. Instead of swinging it hard to starboard, he ordered it go full astern, literally backing up into the pounding waves that were breaking over its decks. The stern was lifted above the waves, its rudder useless and the propeller spinning madly in the air. The 225-metre vessel then virtually surfed to the beach and hit a rock shelf called Big Ben Reef.

Ships are designed for forward motion. For example, the rudder is placed aft of the ship’s screws in order to benefit from the propeller wash pushing against it. When a ship backs down, however, the propeller wash is pushing against nothing and the rudder must rely on the vessel’s motion through the water to grab hold of water and turn the ship. When the ship transitions from froward to “reverse” motion there is a period of time the rudder is totally ineffective. This is why ships need tugboats when departing a dock… until they reach the minimum speed needed for the rudders to be effective (know as bare steerage) the tug must hold the bow on course.

More importantly an unladen ship with forward momentum and an engine working on an order of full ahead can turn quickly. It is important to note this rate of rotation is a critical factor. If a ship turns slowly (as happens during a reverse maneuver) the ship will have difficulty turning through the wind and can get stuck at a heading beam to (perpendicular from) the wind.

The collision broke the back of the ship – hogging, as it is called. It bent the ship into an inverted U-shape that could be seen by onlookers from the beach as ripples in the hull. The captain panicked again and ordered the ship to be abandoned even though there was no chance of it sinking, having already run aground, and needed at least a skeleton crew to minimize damage and monitor the hull to avoid an environmental disaster. They were taken off by helicopter.

Panic is enemy number one in an emergency situation. While some have more difficulty than others avoiding it a captain should never panic. This is a primary reason it takes 10 years of sailing experience and school to obtain a master’s license. I these 10 years you will be exposed to situations at sea that test your panic trigger, if you are unacceptable to panic or indecision at the time if crisis you should not take command of a ship. Many mariners face difficulty getting promoted to second mate for this very reason as this officer position is the highest pay grade obtainable without the need for making life threatening decisions in the face of danger. I have met few captains to which the Peter Principal applies.

For these reasons I find the report nearly unbelievable.

John Konrad is a USCG licensed Master Mariner of Unlimited Tonnage currently working as Chief Mate aboard a 835′ship in the Gulf of Mexico. Since graduating from SUNY Maritime College he has sailed 4 of the world’s oceans and reports from his ship via satellite.

After pouring over the media reports and available facts I’ve decided the story can best be said by our resident maritime experts, gCaptian’s r. Here is MarkL‘s insightful and humorous take:

Observations of a relative indicates that the second gale ( which was more from the south and which coincided with a reasonably high tide) pushed her off the reef and 200-300 yards north, into even shallower water.

This will make life interesting for the salvage effort [being performed by Svitzer Salvage, a division of A.P. Moller-Maersk], as she is now between the shoreline and a line of shallow reefs offshore.

If this effort succeeds in such an exposed spot in winter, it will be one of those quiet epics of salvage we hear so little about in general media. A joke presently being bandied about Newcastle is that the city should forbid salvage, buy the wreck and convert it into ‘apartments with a 360 degree ocean view to sell to idiots from Sydney’.

Ian brings us a Salvage update:

Salvage specialists saying very little except that they are still in “assessment/planning” stage. They confirm that there is a damage to outer hull on starboard side and some seepage of seawater. They also advise that there is a metre gap between outer and inner hull structures and that fuel and lubricants tanks are not in the same area. A specialized salvage tug has arrived from Sydney and another is due in port from Melbourne on Wednesday. It is surmised that fuel etc will be removed prior to any attempt to drag the ship off. It is interesting that the Pasha Bulker is lying roughly parallel to the causeway that connects to Nobbies head and the resulting beach formed against the causeway. The ship is said to “flat bottomed” and firmly lodged on sand rather than adjacent reef, sand that no doubt complicates possible salvage depending on wind and sea over the next few days.

My take? I standby my request for answers regarding the extent to which the human element and incident chain played in the grounding. It is also apparent that modernization of the fleet with advancements like dynamic positioning, real time weather data and redundancy of systems is starting to positively mitigate the damage resulting from a maritime incident. To clarify there are two type of prevention systems; active and passive. The former being systems that require positive effort. In this case did the crew used their satellite comms to discuss the weather patterns with meteorologists or did they simply ignore the port authority’s warnings? Did the captain use his AIS to identify the surrounding ships and call fellow captains via GMDSS to discuss the situation? Did they have access to and use real-time weather data or wait for a 2-dimensional weather fax?

These situations should be a wake up call for the industry to re-evaluate procedure. The titanic saved countless subsequent lives by making the industry think safety and develop SOLAS regulations. The Exxon Valdez made us think about design enhancements most notably double hulls and a series of aviation tragedies linked to human error were the impetus for developing Bridge Resource Management. Each advancement has lead to significant improvements in safety and provided clear, positive results.

Ships Captains have historically needed to be strong in their opinions and self reliant but times are changing. We now live in a small, connected world. The negative result are micro management by marine superintendents detached from the situation and real time monitoring by both regulatory and news organizations. The positive results? Most mariners would say there are few, but why?

In a world where experts and amateurs can work together to write encyclopedias and master mariners from Australia can visit gCaptain to discuss topics with mariners thousands of miles away (in real time!) I question that self-reliance is still the most important trait for a ship’s master. Instead captains need to embrace technology and work on their social skills. They need to use real time monitoring to understand conditions and communication technology to call field experts

The phone number of the man who’s the foremost expert on heavy weather anchoring needs to be posted on every bridge and then conferenced in with the local pilot and a meteorologist, each sharing information on same computer screen. Then the ship’s master should be able to log-on to a conference call with the nearby captains.

Decisiveness and the ability to make the final decision, however, can not change. A captain needs to be able to make decisions even when contrary to expert opinion without fear of jail time. He also needs support and his crew needs passive safety measures. The reason an environmental catastrophe has not occurred in Newcastle is the same reason the 100% of the passengers were able to abandon the “Empress of the North”, the ship’s double hull, an expensive but invaluable passive feature.

Finally I would like to say that without internet connections, bridge technology and investment in ideas little of this can happen. Company’s must take action at a level surpassing that of master mariners and encourage advancement of ideas.

We have the opportunity to increase the scope of Bridge Team Management beyond the bridge and if we do so the savings in life and the environment will easily surpass the investment.

For more of gCaptain’s Coverage of the Pasha Bulker click HERE.

John Konrad is a USCG licensed Master Mariner of Unlimited Tonnage currently working as Chief Mate aboard a 865′ ship in the Gulf of Mexico. Since graduating from SUNY Maritime College he has sailed in all 4 of the worlds oceans and reports from his ship via satellite.

Related Links:

• Example of using technology & ideas to overt crisis.
• A very funny post about a shipping company’s response to a collision.
• A story about Marine Salvage
• Discussion on the criminalization of the Master Mariner

Pasha Bulker Links:

• Newcastle ‘to lose 2m tonnes in coal’
  
• Newcaste Port CEO Question and Answer
• Newcastle Coal Port Resumes `Limited’ Operations
• Shifting the ship will be trial-and-error

UPDATE: A new gCaptain post to this story has been written – Pasha Bulker Incident Report – Nearly Unbelievable

UPDATE: Hunter’s Best informs us that all 22 people have been evacuated from the ship:

EMERGENCY crews have successfully airlifted 22 people from a coal ship that ran aground off Newcastle, New South Wales, in a dramatic rescue described as being “10 out of 10″ for difficulty today.

Read their excellent local coverage: HERE

Bloomberg has more of the story:

The grounding of the Pasha Bulker, which is registered in Panama, raises concerns about the conditions of so-called flag of convenience ships off Newcastle, the International Transport Workers Federation said in a separate e-mailed statement. The ship is flagged by Wealth Line Inc. for the Japanese shipping line Sansho Kaiun Co., Dean Summers, national coordinator of the federation, said in the statement.

The ship’s crew includes 18 Filipinos and two Koreans, the federation said.

Any spill of fuel from the ship could result in an “environmental disaster” for the Newcastle region, Cate Faehrmann, executive director of the Nature Conservation Council, said in a separate statement.

Traces of fuel have started to wash up on the beach at Newcastle, the Herald reported.

Coal Ship Grounded at Newcastle as Gales Hit Coast

John Konrad is a USCG licensed Master Mariner of Unlimited Tonnage currently working as Chief Mate aboard a 835′ ship in the Gulf of Mexico. Since graduating from SUNY Maritime College he has sailed in 4 of the worlds oceans and reports from his ship via satellite.