Collision in restricted visibility

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Victor Hancock
5 years ago
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August 2013 Collision in restricted visibility It was early morning and both vessels were sailing in a busy traffic separation scheme in South East Asia.

1 August 2013 Collision in restricted visibility It was early morning and both vessels were sailing in a busy traffic separation scheme in South East Asia. The sea was calm but there were some rain showers and it was overcast. Vessel A was approaching from the north on a southwesterly course at a speed of 20 knots and Vessel B was approaching from the south on a northeasterly course at a speed of 16 knots. The chief officers on both vessels were on watch assisted by a lookout. The chief officer on vessel B had worked 20 hours straight because of problems at the last port. Around 0720 the rain started to increase and subsequently visibility decreased. Soon there was heavy rain and visibility came down to 2 cables. The master on vessel A came on the bridge around 0730 and noticed the heavy rain but did not really discuss it with the chief officer and he did not tell the chief officer to turn on the foghorn. He reduced speed to 16 knots to adjust for pilot pickup time in the evening and then he left the bridge. The chief officer had several targets on the ARPA but had to tune the radar as the rain caused a lot of interference. He could see vessel B on both the electronic chart and radar as an AIS target. Vessel B was about 5M away and it was obvious it was sailing in the opposite traffic lane and the vessels would pass each other port-to-port. The chief officer on vessel B did notice the heavy rain but decided not to call the master as he usually came on the bridge around this time. He plotted some targets but also lost a lot of targets because of the heavy rain and because the ARPA was set to auto clutter. The chief officer did not tune the radar and never saw vessel A visibly or was able to plot the vessel on the radar. If the chief officer had looked at the AIS he would have seen vessel A but the AIS unit was at the back of the bridge by the chart table. Vessels on the AIS were not linked to the radar or electronic chart. Neither of the two vessels had turned on their foghorns. About 0745 the third officer on vessel B came to the bridge to take over the watch. According to the passage plane there was a 60 degree alteration to port for the next leg. The second officer had done the passage plan and there had not been a discussion about the plan during departure, plus the master had not signed it. The third officer who was monitoring the radar said he could not see any targets and that there was a lot of interference on the radar. The chief officer started to alter course to port. The chief officer on vessel A could see that the AIS indicated that vessel B had altered course to port. He was a little confused by this action. After a minute he could also see that the relative trail indicated that vessel A had altered course and was sailing straight towards them. The chief officer was very worried that the vessels would collide if vessel B maintained its course. He called vessel B on the radio and asked why they were sailing straight towards them? The third officer on vessel B responded on the

2 VHF that they had to alter to starboard for their next leg. Both vessels maintained their speed and could not see each other. The chief officer on vessel A realised that collision was imminent, switched to manual steering and ordered hard to starboard. The third officer on vessel B suddenly saw the port side of vessel A straight in front of them. The chief officer on vessel B switched to manual steering and ordered hard to port and put the engines to emergency stop. The collision could not be avoided..

3 Discussion Go to the File menu and select Save as... to save the pdf-file on your computer. You can place the marker below each question to write the answer directly into the file. 1. What were the immediate causes of this accident? 2. Where does the chain of error start? 3. What is the risk of this type of accident happening on our vessel? 4. At what point should the master be called? 5. At what point should the officers have taken evasive action?

4 6. What are our procedures on how to use the VHF for collision avoidance? 7. What are the procedures when an officer has worked long hours without any rest? 8. Are there any procedures on how to tune the radar? 9. How could this accident have been prevented? 10. What sections in our SMS, if any, were breached?

5 11. Would our SMS have been enough to prevent this accident? 12. If procedures weren t followed, why do you think this was the case? 13. Which COLREGS regulations weren t followed? 14. What do you think is the root cause of this accident?

Collision in restricted visibility

August 2018 Collision in restricted visibility Vessel A, a container vessel, was approaching the pilot station at full speed which was 17 knots and on a course of 280. It was in the afternoon there was