Why ships crash

[Keith Tindell]

Program on TV tonight, 2100 hrs on BBC2, the subject as title suggests, why the accidents happen. No idea who the experts are on the program, could be interesting, or just another *don't know what they are on about *. They will be covering the big beast that blocked Suez.

[vic mcclymont]

Beat me to KT was just about to post. Wonder if it will be described as a tanker?
Vic

[Ivan Cloherty]

It'll be a 'boat'

[Frank Thorp]

just watched the program. very interesting. And an eye opener. Not just the big beast.

Frank.

[j.sabourn]

I haven’t seen the program , but know the extent and type of training as a young bridge offficer I received over my own sea career. Mostly it depended on the master or masters you sailed with , for the first 4 years ones experience watchkeeping was zilch. On gaining a 2 mates cert. and going 3 mate , any confidence you had was severely restricted when the master in my case said don’t do anything if you see a ship is going to pass close jump up and down on the deck over my cabin and I”ll come up on the bridge. Thank goodness he came and went and the next one was more trusting.The old fixed screw steamship once away FAOP no one wanted to see that broken until EOP. To use the engines was sacrilege , and in any case the engineers wanted half an hours notice . Fog or bad visibility was always the mariners worse nightmare with or without radar , and there were numerous collisions and near misses assisted by of course radar. When bridge control was brought on to ships most of us heaved a sigh of relief as knew there was no restrictions on using our own judgement when to slow down etc. as required , unless of course you had a master like I started off with. When I first sailed with Radar you had to get consent off the master to even switch it on, today it is never off. Any ship crashes as so subtley titled will depend mainly on the person on the bridge and his personal background on his training and his own skills if he has any. As I have said before I have sailed quite a bit with third world mentality on the bridge and never really slept at any time , but tried to keep out of the way and let whoever was on watch develop his own confidence without him knowing.
However on my own time at sea I did see more competence when I started than what I saw when I finished . JS

I hope whoever wrote the script for this program didn’t write it from the book and had some experience of his own. When it comes to shiphandling itself this will vary master to master , and one learns different things from different idiocrazies of the vessel and how long you have lived with them. The old story that the ship can talk to you through the soles of your feet , is often scorned but is more true than than those unbelievers think. Probably why in earlier times you would have got a bollocking sitting down on watch . JS

[happy daze john in oz]

d a program here in Oz a couple of weeks ago, may have come from UK, called,

'Why did the Costa Concordia' sink??

Well one comment was, she hit some rocks and water got in?

Realy!!!!

The skipper, or some one taking his place said the following,

"I wanted to abandon ship but did not know how to'?????

That was all from the trailer, having seen that bit I did not bother to watch it.

[j.sabourn]

Well according to news reports at the time he knew how to, he just waited and was thrown into a lifeboat , maybe everyone else saw this and waited for the same to happen to them ? JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

John your #5 echoes my own starting experience, which it would of course as we are the same vintage, in my opinion you would have learnt nothing new from the programme, in fact some of it was misleading. The analyst although very good at computer modelling had never been to sea, so had never felt a ship through the soles of his feet and unlikely to be aware of bridge procedure. The Egyptian Admiral of course laid the blame squarely on the Master, and that is what Masters accept, but stating that the Master should have refused to enter the canal in high winds, would have been a career suicide, also that the Master should have taken over from the pilot if he wasn't happy, is alright in theory, but of course there were two pilots both communicating with each other in Arabic you have no idea what their intentions are, and any mistake on a 225,000 tonne vessel in a narrow waterway has happened before you can rectify it, also all communications with port control were in Arabic. Why a young second engineer was consulted on navigation matters will remain a mystery to which only the programme producers will know the answer.(perhaps because she was pretty??) There was a Professor of Maritime affairs also commenting, but what his seagoing experience was they failed to mention, the last one I saw of such ilk was a shore based maritime lawyer. There was an American WC Bar pilot and he was the only one who made any sense when commenting and also stated that if anything went wrong whilst on his pilotage he faced the same type of Court of Inquiry as the Master of the vessel would, they couldn't just walk away and say 'The Master should have taken over'

Doubt you would have learnt anything new John and certainly not an eye opener for anyone in our department. Incidentally it was introduced as a programme about boats

[Ray Arnold]

And will it be admitted that a 'Suez canal pilot' was in charge?

[Ivan Cloherty]

And will it be admitted that a 'Suez canal pilot' was in charge?

Not on last nights programme, the Admiral in charge of Suez transits was adamant that his pilots were there only in an advisory role and had no authority in conning the vessel. He was also adamant that the refloating efforts was an all Egyptian effort and outside help not needed conveniently forgetting the large Dutch flagged and crewed salvage tug taking the lead in getting the vessel back into mid channel