Another OOPS with ferry

[BruceK]

And yet it was the ferry that collided into the Doral, not the Doral into the ferry. I fine point to make because the Doral should have taken avoiding action. And yes I do use my mirrors in the car and yet even then I do on occasion get a surprise to see something I had missed. If that has never happened to you please allow me to personally carve you a pedestal.

 

[scottie]

There speaks a sailor. I could have the waveley in the cockpit of my twin engined mobo and still not hear it!

True
But you would hear it’s foghorn at least 5 times surely
Just don’t ask it to turn quickly or in a short distance

 

[BruceK]

True
But you would hear it’s foghorn at least 5 times surely
Just don’t ask it to turn quickly or in a short distance

When you are creeping in the fog / mist you get to hear much more. There is no chance I could have heard her in those conditions and at that distance even with my engines idling. We were never in any danger of collision, my point was she had been in my blind spot for a good 10 minutes or so. Missing a boat when there are dozens about is one thing. Missing a ship of her size when she is the only other boat about is another. For me it was an eye opener. When it's choppy like that you are very much fore and aft focused and largely fore as you anticipate the waves, speed and steering, getting off the helm to have a look in the arc 100 deg to 160 degree off your stbd quarter is not something you tend to do every minute or so. Not unless you want the boat to yaw wildly a few seconds later when the next wave hits.

 

[Mr Googler]

When you are creeping in the fog / mist you get to hear much more. There is no chance I could have heard her in those conditions and at that distance even with my engines idling. We were never in any danger of collision, my point was she had been in my blind spot for a good 10 minutes or so. Missing a boat when there are dozens about is one thing. Missing a ship of her size when she is the only other boat about is another. For me it was an eye opener. When it's choppy like that you are very much fore and aft focused and largely fore as you anticipate the waves, speed and steering, getting off the helm to have a look in the arc 100 deg to 160 degree off your stbd quarter is not something you tend to do every minute or so. Not unless you want the boat to yaw wildly a few seconds later when the next wave hits.

https://www.quark-elec.com/product/qk-a028-n2k-nmea-2000-ais-receiver-gps/?currency=GBP

 

[[165042]]

And yet it was the ferry that collided into the Doral, not the Doral into the ferry. I fine point to make because the Doral should have taken avoiding action. And yes I do use my mirrors in the car and yet even then I do on occasion get a surprise to see something I had missed. If that has never happened to you please allow me to personally carve you a pedestal.

Where in the MAIB report does it state the Ferry collided with the Doral? It doesn't - it simply states a collision occurred:

The collision

Reconstruction of the tracks of Red Falcon and Phoenix in the Thorn Channel (Figure 8) shows that when the ferry steadied on a heading of about 216° at 1634:30, the motor cruiser had just entered the channel. The ferry was overtaking the motor cruiser, which was within 0.2nm on a bearing of 240°, with a speed advantage of about 6kts. The bearing of Phoenix from Red Falcon remained steady as the distance between the vessels reduced until the vessels collided at an angle of between 30° and 40°. No avoiding action was taken on board either vessel because Red Falcon’s master and chief officer were unaware of Phoenix, and the driver and other occupants of the motor cruiser were unaware of the ferry.

Regarding the other matter I suggest you get your penknife out :encouragement:.

 

[BruceK]

https://www.quark-elec.com/product/qk-a028-n2k-nmea-2000-ais-receiver-gps/?currency=GBP

Silly beggar, we're talking eyes now. Yes AIS, radar etc would be ideal if always on display. My mid 90's dashboard does not allow for a MFD. I have space for a silly little CP with a 7 inch screen. You try and read that with the boat bumping up and down AIS here is not that great either. Everybody receives AIS but nobody is transmitting. Kinda sucks the value out of it

 

[jfm]

despite what the maib report said (and let's be honest, they have been of pretty poor quality the last few years) I think Bruce's description "ferry ... collided into the Doral, not the Doral into the ferry" is entirely fair.

 

[[165042]]

I don't agree but each to their own of course. From the MAIB statement based on GPS data the ferry had a fixed course and speed in the main channel when the Doral entered it at a lower speed. What the Doral *should* have done was have situational awareness - understood it was entering the main channel and checked traffic accordingly. You don't blindly join a motorway slower than the main traffic and blame an articulated lorry for hitting you do you?

Appreciate observation was lacking on both sides but honestly - the ferry is huge and if you can't observe an object that large when skippering a boat you shouldn't be a skipper IMO.

 

[benjenbav]

I don’t get that J. Ferry was give way and ran into that path of the doral, not other way around.
Ferry was mostly to blame and its seamanship was far worse than doral‘s.
I suspect that’s why the report avoids a conclusion.
Must say I couldn’t help but find the report lacking objectivity, and it seemed to me to want to increase degree of blame on that doral guy because that was a more convenent conclusion. But seems clear the ferry was mostly to blame. That would be true even if the ferry had turned back to help, but astonishingly it didn’t.

I formed a similar view from reading the analysis of the situation up to, including and after the impact. I found it especially difficult to understand the ship’s master’s decision not to turn around when one of the crew alerted the bridge to the passengers’ reports that they’d run over a little boat or even, it would seem, to look out of the rear window to check.

 

[colhel]

Irrespective of who's to blame in this case, im not sure I'd like to remain a stand on vessel when being in the way of a Red Funnel in the Solent.

 

[BruceK]

Couldn't agree more. Daft thing to intentionally do. But that isn't the crux of it. It is that both didn't see each other. As hard as it is to miss seeing a ferry, it's also hard to hide a 10m boat the size of a small lorry. Yet that is what happened and people are surprised by it. My point was it can happen easier than you might give credit for and indeed happens more than you might otherwise think.

 

[jfm]

I don't agree but each to their own of course. From the MAIB statement based on GPS data the ferry had a fixed course and speed in the main channel when the Doral entered it at a lower speed. What the Doral *should* have done was have situational awareness - understood it was entering the main channel and checked traffic accordingly. You don't blindly join a motorway slower than the main traffic and blame an articulated lorry for hitting you do you?

Appreciate observation was lacking on both sides but honestly - the ferry is huge and if you can't observe an object that large when skippering a boat you shouldn't be a skipper IMO.

The guy who had blindly joined the motorway had been on it for at least 1 minute 10 seconds before the artic ran into his rear. You're correct as to the Doral's failings but the ferry crept up from behind for over a minute and drove into him. That's much worse imho.
.

 

[MapisM]

What the Doral *should* have done was have situational awareness - understood it was entering the main channel and checked traffic accordingly. You don't blindly join a motorway slower than the main traffic and blame an articulated lorry for hitting you do you?

What you are advocating is in essence what I always adopted as my personal philosophy, i.e. that the colregs are irrelevant when you are helming a pleasure boat in an area with commercial traffic. When ferries and other ships are in sight, I always consider myself as the give way vessel, period.
I'm well aware that this is not what I *should* do, but I've yet to hear someone from a bridge calling me on VHF to complain about that - in fact, I actually suspect that ferries etc. also follow the same philosophy vs. pleasure boats, but in reverse, if you see what I mean.

That said, I fully agree with jfm that the ferry skipper could (and I believe would, even if I'm far from being an expert of UK criminal law) have been charged of manslaughter, if any casualty were involved.
And having just read the report, I can't see one single reason why he shouldn't have been ruled guilty.
Of involuntary manslaughter of course, and with several extenuating circumstances probably, but still..... :ambivalence:

 

[U4]

That area is very busy with large commercial traffic - that’s what I generally do, either run slightly outside of the big channel, or cross at 90’ or so.

+1

 

[simonfraser]

The best way of doing this is to keep to the Small Craft Channels or where these don't exit, keep to the edge of the buoyed channels or slightly outside of it (depth permitting).

+1 basic seamanship / looking after ones self ?

 

[sorabain]

I formed a similar view from reading the analysis of the situation up to, including and after the impact. I found it especially difficult to understand the ship’s master’s decision not to turn around when one of the crew alerted the bridge to the passengers’ reports that they’d run over a little boat or even, it would seem, to look out of the rear window to check.

From the report the collision occurred at 16:35 and the passenger reports were only relayed to the bridge by the service manager at 16:44. The ferry would have gone a long way in 9 minutes. I'm sure they would have turned to observe, but since "several small nearby vessels quickly closed to assist" they likely saw a collection of vessels in close proximity and assumed that it was two of those small vessels that collided with each other rather than one going under the ferry.