RULING 6 OF 2014 OF THE MARITIME DISCIPLINARY COURT OF THE NETHERLANDS IN CASE NUMBER 2013.V4B - STATENGRACHT

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1 RULING 6 OF 2014 OF THE MARITIME DISCIPLINARY COURT OF THE NETHERLANDS IN CASE NUMBER 2013.V4B - STATENGRACHT As petitioned by: petitioner The Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, now the Minister of Infrastructure and the Environment, in The Hague, represented by: E.J. van Leeuwen, The Shipping Inspector, Rotterdam, versus the person concerned, A. V., who did not appear. 1. The course of the proceedings On 1 July 2013, the Maritime Disciplinary Court received a petition for a disciplinary hearing of the case against the person concerned as the second mate of the Dutch seagoing vessel Statengracht from E.J. van Leeuwen, Shipping Inspector in Rotterdam. The petition included eight appendices. The Disciplinary Court has notified the person concerned of the petition in a letter written in English, enclosing an English translation of the petition with appendices, and has informed the person concerned of the right of appeal. This letter was sent both by registered and ordinary mail to the address given for shipping company/shipping manager of the vessel, Spliethoff's Bevrachtingskantoor B.V. The registered letter was returned. The letter in the English language with appendices was subsequently sent to the address given for the person concerned. No response whatsoever has been received from the person concerned. 1

2 On 31 January 2014 the Disciplinary Court received from the inspector a report of the Marine Safety Investigation Unit of Transport Malta. This report was forwarded with a letter in the English language to the person concerned, who was once again given the opportunity to file a defence. The person concerned did not respond to this. The presiding judge stipulated that the oral hearing of the case would be held at hours on 28 March 2014 at the offices of the Disciplinary Court in Amsterdam. The petitioner and the person concerned were summoned (by letter in English) to appear at the hearing of the Disciplinary Court. The court hearing was held on 28 March E.J. van Leeuwen, Shipping Inspector, appeared at the hearing for the petitioner. The person concerned did not appear. Leave was granted to proceed in default of appearance by the person concerned. 2. The petition The following forms the basis for the petition. On 2 February 2013 the Dutch seagoing vessel Statengracht collided with the Maltese freighter Katre in the Baltic. At the time of the collision the person concerned was second mate of the Statengracht. The person concerned is charged with possibly acting in breach of the following regulations and provisions: Convention on International Provisions for the prevention of collisions at sea, 1972 (referred to below as: Colregs), regulation 2 Responsibility, regulation 6 Safe navigation, regulation 8 Measures for the prevention of collisions, regulation 10, Traffic Separation Schemes, regulation 16 Measures to be taken by the vessel giving way, The Maritime Crews Act, Section 4, subsection 3, acting as a ship's officer in a manner befitting a good seaman. 2

3 3. The position of the person concerned The person concerned has not responded to the request to appear at the hearing. Only his statement as referred to below is available. 4. Assessment of the petition A. A written statement of the person concerned and rendered in summarised and concise form in the Dutch language amounts to the following: I have worked for Spliethoff for three years. I obtained my second mate's licence in 2008 and my first mate's licence in This was my first appointment as second mate on the Statengracht. I had previously sailed on the same route on sister ships on two occasions. I joined the Statengracht on 24 January On 31 January 2013 the vessel departed from Rauma, Finland, and was on its way to the Rostock roads. The ship was loaded (but not fully loaded) below decks with forestry products. Under the three-watch system the watch from to was kept by the captain and third mate and the watch from to by the second mate. On 2 February 2013 I took over the watch from the third mate at hours. Visibility was good, the vessel was sailing in a westerly direction at a course of approx. 250 at a speed of approx. 17 knots. There were two radar devices on. I monitored the radar on the starboard side and the captain only looked at the one on the port side. There was a lot of shipping traffic in that area. Two ships were sailing on the same course as ours at a distance of approx. 1 mile and 1.5 miles on our starboard side, and there were two vessels on crossing courses. One of these vessels was coming from port and the other, the Katre, from starboard. 3

4 When I took over the watch the third mate told me about the situation, especially the vessels on the crossing course. Shortly after that time the ship coming from the port side changed course to starboard in order to pass astern of us. I placed the vessel crossing our course from starboard on the radar plot and closely monitored it. Our room for manoeuvre was limited owing to the vessel sailing on the same course on our starboard side at a distance of approx. 1 mile. For that reason the course was changed to starboard to avoid the Katre without placing the other starboard vessel in danger. According to our plot this course change was sufficient to pass astern of the Katre and there was no need to take any further action provided that the Katre maintained its course and speed. When the Statengracht and the Katre closely approached each other I realised that the Katre was turning to port: instead of showing its red light it was now showing both a red and a green light. The captain immediately took over the navigation, deactivated the automatic pilot and turned hard to starboard. Our ship turned farther to starboard. Shortly after that the Katre collided with the Statengracht at what was virtually a right angle. The Statengracht sustained a large hole in its port side. The ship took on a heavy list to starboard. B. A written statement of the captain is largely in keeping with that of the person concerned as regards the description of events. It is also stated here that the captain (56) joined the Statengracht on 13 December 2012 for his second period on board that vessel and that prior to this he had sailed for many years on the same route on board sister ships. The captain was already on the bridge prior to the watch being handed over to the person concerned, and remained there. C. Nine screen prints are given in a document of the German Wasserschützpolizei. The first of these presents an image of the vessels in the relevant navigation area at hours on 1 February The other 4

5 shows the Statengracht and the Katre in the period from to hours on 2 February 2013, with the AIS details of these vessels. D. A written statement of the first mate of the Katre, provides the following information, given in concise form in Dutch and as understood by the Disciplinary Court: I took at sounding on the Statengracht when that vessel was at a distance of 5 miles and kept that vessel under continuous observation. When the Statengracht was at a distance of 0.6 miles with a closest point of approach (CPA) of 0.45 miles, the Statengracht turned to starboard and stopped turning. I was unable to turn to starboard. The CPA was now 0.15 miles and the distance to my bow was 0.4 miles. I turned to port and stopped. I had not understood the intention of the Statengracht; I communicated by VHF that I was turning to port and started the turn. The Statengracht did not reply and continued turning to starboard. I stopped and went astern but that did not prevent the collision. E. A Marine Safety Investigation Report of the MSIU of Malta Transport - rendered in summarised and concise form in Dutch - provides the following information, and the Disciplinary Court has only taken note of the factual details provided and which are not contested by the person concerned. This report presents details presented in two charts derived from the ARPA system on the Katre and the VDR on the Statengracht. The times given in the report are in UTC. In the information below they are given in local time (UTC + 1). On the night of 2 February 2013 the Statengracht (length 172 m., breadth 25 m., 1,676 BRT, 1 controllable pitch propeller) was sailing on a westerly course (approx. 250 ) to the entrance to the traffic separation scheme to the north of Rügen, at a speed of approx. 17 knots. It was a busy navigation area. There were two other vessels sailing in the same direction on the starboard side, the Q Ionari at 1 mile and the Nordic Philip at 1.5 miles. The Statengracht was sailing faster than these two other vessels. There were two 5

6 vessels with crossing courses, the Nordvik coming from port and the Katre from starboard. First mate Kuchinsky and a lookout were on watch on the bridge of the Katre (length 88 m., breadth 13 m., 2,497 BRT, 1 controllable pitch propeller). The vessel was carrying ballast en route from Helsingborg, Sweden, to Stralsund, Germany. The vessel was steering a south-easterly course (approx. 134 ) at a speed of approx. 7.2 knots. The ship was equipped with an ECDIS system, ARPA and reception of AIS information. In relation to the vessels going towards the westerly/south-westerly lane of the traffic separation scheme, the Katre was the vessel that had to maintain its course and speed. It was dark, visibility was approx. 8 miles and there was a westerly wind, 3 Bft, and the sea was calm. The starboard radar on the bridge of the Statengracht was set to a range of 6 miles, observed by the second mate V., and the port radar was set to a range alternating between 12 miles and 6 miles, by the person concerned. The radar devices had ARPA and the other vessels were shown on the screen with their name and other AIS data. It was also possible to display the course and speed of the other vessels, as well as their CPA and TCPA in relation to the Statengracht. The vessel was on automatic pilot. Prior to that time the watch was handed over to V. at around hours by the third mate. This handover took about four minutes. From hours the CPA with the Katre was 0.5 miles. The sounding of the Katre from the Statengracht remained virtually unchanged ( ) from that time until about hours. At around hours the Q Ionari changed course to starboard to sail astern of the Katre without any problems. At around hours the Nordvik made a broad course change to starboard, so that this vessel would sail astern of the Statengracht. The person concerned noticed this. At around hours the person concerned told the second mate that he should not allow the Katre to get too close. From approx hours the second mate changed the course of the Statengracht a few degrees to port with the aid of the automatic pilot. At around hours the person 6

7 concerned said that bigger change of course to starboard would have to be made so that the other ship would understand the intention of the Statengracht. After that the Statengracht turned farther to starboard, after the person concerned had said twice that the second mate had to turn more to starboard. At around hours the person concerned changed the automatic pilot to manual and went hard to starboard. The person concerned had seen that the Katre had changed course to port. This was also reported by VHF. This was followed at around hours by the collision, in which the bow of the Katre collided with the port side of the Statengracht. At around hours the Katre had reduced speed from 7.2 knots, ultimately to approx. 5.8 knots. At around hours the Katre had changed course a few degrees to starboard and at around hours a few degrees to port. The speed of the Statengracht, 17.4 knots, did not change until the collision took place. 5. The ruling of the Disciplinary Court Based on the statements and other information given above, the judgement of the Disciplinary Court is as follows. On 2 February 2013 at around hours, local time, the Dutch seagoing vessel Statengracht collided with the Maltese freighter Katre in the Baltic. The person concerned was the second mate of the Statengracht and was the officer of the watch on the bridge up until the time of the collision. The person concerned took over the watch from the third mate at hours. Prior to that the captain was on the bridge and he remained there. The handover of the watch took only four minutes. During the hours of darkness the watch should only be taken over once the eyes of the following officer have become completely accustomed to the darkness (STCW code, Section A-VIII/2, Part 3.1, article 19). In the judgement of the Disciplinary 7

8 Court four minutes is far too short for this. It has not been demonstrated that the person concerned arrived at the bridge in sufficiently good time. The person concerned had only joined the Statengracht a few days previously. At the time of the change of watch the Statengracht was sailing in a busy shipping area close to the northeast entrance to the traffic separation scheme to the north of Rügen. In this area the Statengracht should have been navigating with extra caution at the end of a traffic separation scheme. The person concerned was confronted with a complex situation in the darkness: a number of vessels sailing in the same direction and crossing from various directions, and there was also oncoming shipping. The Statengracht had to give way to the Katre, which was approaching at a crossing course from starboard. The same applied to the Q Ionari, which was located to starboard of the Statengracht. The Statengracht had to maintain its course in relation to the Nordvik, which was approaching at a crossing course from port. At hours the Q Ionari changed course to starboard, as a result of which this vessel would pass astern of the Katre. From the conflict with the Nordvik was resolved when the ship took a broad evasive manoeuvre to starboard at a good distance in order to sail astern of the Statengracht. After that the approach of the Katre still posed a problem. The CPA was and remained approx. 0.5 miles. The sounding did not fundamentally change. There was a danger of collision. The captain told the person concerned he should not allow the Katre to get too close (00.12 hours). It seems that it was not until a few minutes after this warning that the person concerned made any turn to starboard while the automatic pilot was still on, as a result of which the course changed slowly and the effect of the manoeuvre to starboard was limited. The Statengracht made only a small turn to starboard (from hours). The automatic pilot was wrongly not changed to the manual setting. This change of course was not enough to be clearly perceivable to the Katre and to sail at a sufficient distance astern of the Katre. De captain also said 8

9 this to the person concerned (00.19 hours). The first mate of the Katre confirmed that he had not understood the intentions of the Statengracht. It was not until around hours that the Statengracht turned more sharply to starboard. It seems that the captain intervened at that point: the automatic pilot was switched to manual and a sharp turn was made to starboard. However it was too late to avoid a collision. It has not been clearly demonstrated that the Statengracht could not have turned to starboard (much) sooner because the Q Ionari was on its starboard side. That vessel - originally at a diagonal distance of approx. 1 mile - had already changed course to starboard at hours. The statements of the captain also show that he took the view that the Statengracht should and - apparently - could have made a sharper turn to starboard. If and to the extent that the space for a substantial change of course was already limited, another measure that could have been taken was to reduce the Statengracht's speed to avoid a collision with the Katre. The Statengracht was sailing at a fast speed of over 17 knots and maintained this speed up until the collision took place. A timely reduction of speed would have been an obvious and effective way of avoiding a collision and to gaining more time to assess the situation. As it was, the ship did not maintain a safe speed in such a way that it could take correct and effective measures to avoid a collision. The person concerned should have been aware of the presence of the Katre, which had right of way, and the danger of colliding with it over 20 minutes before the collision took place. However during that time period all that was done was to make a small change of course to starboard that was not perceivable to the other vessel. This course of events shows that the person concerned did not have a clear image of the situation and that he did not know what measures to take. It was only in the final minutes before the collision that the captain intervened and went hard to starboard, which at 9

10 that point in time was an appropriate response. No reduction of speed was made at all. Contrary to what could have been expected of it, the Katre did not maintain its course and speed. The ship slightly reduced its speed from hours. The change of course to port was made only a few minutes prior to the collision. It can be noted in that regard that a ship that has to maintain its course and speed is permitted to carry out a manoeuvre itself as soon as it realises that the ship that is obliged to give way is not taking the prescribed appropriate measures and that former ship is obliged to do so if a collision cannot be avoided by means of action taken by the ship that is obliged to give way alone (Colregs regulation 17). The slight turn to starboard made by the Statengracht was apparently not noticed by the Katre, which saw the Statengracht continuing on its course without reducing speed. No attempt was made to contact the other vessel by VHF in order to find out its intentions, to remind the other vessel of its obligations and to clarify or signal this by means of its own actions. Since both vessels had immediately available AIS information the other vessel could have been called up with its name and call sign. In this situation timely VHF contact would have been useful. The conclusion is that the Statengracht did not take timely measures that were clearly perceivable to the Katre in order to avoid a collision. In view of the established facts, the person concerned has acted contrary to regulations 2, 6, 8, 10 (f) and 16 of the Colregs. This also constitutes a violation of Section 4.3 of the Dutch Maritime Crews Act. The Disciplinary Court takes the view that the Bridge Resource Management left a lot to be desired. The communication between the person concerned and the captain was anything but optimum. There are serious doubts about whether the person concerned, as officer of the watch, had a clear image of 10

11 the situation and knew what to do. Although the captain was apparently aware of this, there was a lack of timely and clear instructions from the captain to the person concerned. The person concerned did not tell the captain that he was unsure about the situation and did not ask promptly and clearly for instructions. 6. The disciplinary measure The Maritime Disciplinary Court judges that the person concerned failed seriously in his responsibilities as officer of the watch, which resulted in the vessel colliding with the Katre. The person concerned did not act as befits a responsible ship's officer, as a result of which the safety of the people on board, the vessel, its cargo, and the environment were jeopardised. The serious collision resulted in both vessels sustaining considerable damage. The Statengracht sustained a large hole in its port side and could have sunk. Fortunately there were no personal injuries and no environmental pollution was caused. In view of the seriousness of the evident behaviours of the person concerned a suspension of the navigation licence for the duration mentioned below is appropriate. The Disciplinary Court has taken account of the fact that the person concerned has failed entirely to respond to the notifications sent to him about these disciplinary proceedings. 11

12 7 The decision The Disciplinary Court: Declares the objections against the person concerned as stated under point 5 to be well-founded; suspends the navigation licence of the person concerned for a period of one year. Duly delivered by A.N. van Zelm van Eldik, LL.M., deputy presiding judge, E.R. IJssel de Schepper, R.J. Gutteling, N.P. Kortenoeven and R.J.N. de Haan, members, in the presence of E.H.G. Kleingeld, LL.M., as secretary and pronounced by E.A. Bik, LL.M., in public session on 7 May E.H.G. Kleingeld secretary E.A. Bik president Sent: 07 May 2014 An appeal against this decision can be lodged within six weeks of the date of forwarding with the Dutch Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal ( College van Beroep voor het Bedrijfsleven ), Prins Clauslaan 60, The Hague, the Netherlands. 12

RULING 3 OF 2015 OF THE MARITIME DISCIPLINARY COURT OF THE NETHERLANDS IN CASE No V2-LADY IRINA

RULING 3 OF 2015 OF THE MARITIME DISCIPLINARY COURT OF THE NETHERLANDS IN CASE No. 2015.V2-LADY IRINA As petitioned by: petitioner the Minister of Infrastructure and the Environment in The Hague, authorised