caribbeancat
Well-Known Member
Please see discussion document below. This was originally put together to assist in improving this very difficult situation for cruisers participating in the ARC and the yachting fraternity in general.
World Cruising Club has to date completly ignored this document and attempts to engage them. Shame, all we were trying to do was improve things for yachtsmen in the future. This leaves me doubtful as to the integrity of World Cruising Club management.
I have earlier posts on this subject
"Atlantic Rally for Cruisers Catamarans"
"Immigrant Rescue Report - Atlantic Rally for Cruisers"
Discussion Document for Development of a Point Plan Encountering Immigrant Vessels off the Coast of Africa
Distribution: ARC Management, Crew of Yacht “‘Tallulah’”, Crew of Yacht “‘If Only’”
Author: Julian Bradder
Confidential
This document is concerned with evaluating some of the lessons learned as a result of an incident directly involving two yachts, ‘Tallulah’ and ‘If Only’, together with a ‘migrant’ vessel some 300 miles off the coast of Mauritania, Africa. Other vessels were involved, most notably and directly ‘MV Loren L’Oritzen’, and less directly, ‘Salt Whistle’ and ‘Flute’.
We felt there are a number of salient points in respect of the incident.
1. The migrant vessel was some 300 miles off the coast of Mauritania.
2. The vessel was small but nevertheless had some 52 people aboard.
3. The people aboard the vessel had been at sea for 15 days
4. 2 people aboard the vessel were dead
5. The migrant vessel was relatively quick, able to achieve around 8.5kts
6. It is difficult to prevent individuals from the migrant vessel getting aboard, whilst we (‘Tallulah’) were able to out run the vessel, ‘If Only’ did not have the capability to do as such and consequently were vulnerable to boarding and as such were boarded by two people.
7. It is a very frightening situation for people aboard the yachts as they do not actually know what they are encountering. For example are we looking at migrants, pirates or something else? Ultimately, the location is remote, and people feel very vulnerable as a result.
8. The people aboard the migrant vessel were very desperate and appeared willing to take huge risks to save their lives. I had to make the ‘safe’ assumption ‘desperate people take desperate measures’ and above all I as the Skipper had to prioritise the safety of the registered crew of ‘Tallulah’ above that of the migrants, whilst still attempting to do the best possible job for those in need of rescue. Note that this decision making process is a luxury that many smaller boats wouldn’t have as they would be overwhelmed and boarded.
9. Whilst we understand the general responsibilities within Maritime Law in terms of being required to assist other vessels in trouble, I feel that certainly in respect of the knowledge of our own crew that there are some grey areas here particularly vis-à-vis the need to mitigate risk to one’s own vessel and crew versus that of the need to save the lives of those who require rescue. Perhaps a legal instructional could be provided that provided yachts with a more concrete understanding would be beneficial.
10. There was a language barrier between the British yachts and the people aboard the vessel. This meant that it was very difficult and perhaps risky to establish a dialogue or close proximity with the migrants and thus this raised the perceived risk in the minds of those aboard the two yachts of engagement in close quarters communication.
11. We assume that if two people aboard were dead, it was very likely that many others were in a poor state of health. Whilst we dropped water astern of us on two separate occasions, only the second was collected possibly due to difficulties in seeing the water we had dropped. In view of this, and the ultimate objective of saving lives, we also felt that we lacked a medical knowledge in respect of the best water / food rations to make available to the people.
12. Neither yacht wanted to allow 50 people to board or indeed a group of people larger than onboard crew. Clearly a yacht is a big boat to somebody sat in a launch 300 miles offshore. There are obvious safety, personal and general security risks to having so many people board a yacht. Thus questions of liability and so on do arise as a result and I feel that clarification of these liabilities would greatly assist yachts.
13. This perhaps raises questions in respect of whether or not yachts should arm themselves with some kind of defensive weaponry. This I understand is a very big step but is perhaps a matter that should be debated.
14. Maintaining a night time watch on such a vessel as requested by MRCC is next to impossible particularly where no moon exists. The best option we had was to maintain a speed close to the maximum speed of the launch vessel and hope that they followed (and retained the capability to follow) whilst not boarding. Other yachts would probably not have this option as was the case with ‘If Only’. In this case, ‘If Only’ was followed as the people aboard the launch realised that they were more easily able to maintain a close contact with ‘If Only’ than ‘Tallulah’.
15. We dropped a note with the second water despatch. We believe that we were lucky in that we had foreign language speakers aboard who were able to write “Help is Coming, Stay 400M away from our vessel” in English, French and Spanish. However, we are to this day unclear as to whether or not the people could a) read b) read the languages that we had written in and do consider that perhaps something more articulate could be written to convince the migrants that we had their best interests at heart but that they should follow our instructions carefully. The event would have been much easier to manage if we could have remained stationary and at a safe distance.
16. We believe that the migrants assumed that ‘If Only’ was their rescue vessel and that our approach to them led to a conclusion that this was their help. It wasn’t and our approach was simply to warn ‘If Only’ of the developing situation.
17. A low cost Position Indicator Device that could be given to the migrants together with instructions would help greatly, perhaps a simple radar reflector or light that would allow local tracking or some kind of electronic GPS / EPIRB transmission device that would allow the authorities to maintain a track on the launch vessel.
18. The Spanish authorities released a single vessel, Luz de Mar. The ETA ranged from 20 hours to 3 days. This wild variance did not give either ‘Tallulah’ or ‘If Only’ confidence in the control that the Spanish authorities had over the situation. Certainly, the Spanish Authorities had no fast patrol vessel at sea as we were advised early on that the ‘tug’ (great confidence booster that), ‘Luz de Mar’ had ‘just left Tenerife’. We were also asked to try and persuade the Danish MV Loren L’Oritzen to pick up the migrants. The Master (who was very helpful) of this vessel was understandably concerned (as were we) at this due to a) The very high topsides of the vessel and difficulty getting people on board and b) The commercial pressures to reach destination that such vessels have.
19. The Tenerife MRCC liaison worked very hard through the night and should be congratulated for his efforts, commitment, dedication, control and communication under pressure (from me at least!). There were however language barriers, and with English being the spoken language of the sea, we do feel that the Spanish Authorities could invest more in language training. That said, his English was much better than the Skippers Spanish. We did at times have severe struggles being understood.
20. We originally contacted Las Palmas MRCC, who we felt were slow to respond and slow to give us advice. In fact, I had to chase them when over an hour had passed from my initial contact with them. This felt like a very long time. It felt like there was no particular plan in place.
21. We wasted a lot of time trying to establish communication methods with LPMRCC and TMRCC. Event organisers such as World Cruising Club should supply lists of communication methods for each yacht participating.
22. There did not seem to be a clear plan coming from TMRCC until the incident was quite well developed. Certainly I feel some actions should be part of an automatic plan; such as instructing the local ‘intercept’ yacht to issue a PAN PAN / DSC alert locally to attract the attention of more suitable local rescue vessels and establishing roles, identities and communication protocols early on. I am a professional Skipper and consequently well versed in SAR method and protocol and thus almost instinctively knew how to take control of the local situation for a successful outcome. I am not convinced that all yachts whether ARC participants or not would be as well versed in effective management of such a situation and thus, a more pro-active role from the MRCC would be better.
23. We encountered one Spanish Fishing vessel who responded to our DSC but they were completely unwilling to assist in the operation – to any extent, citing the loss of a days fishing as the reason they would not assist. It is clear that the Spanish authorities have a great reliance on the fishing fleet to assist in these situations. We would like to understand whether or not the Spanish authorities have a ‘compensatory’ arrangement with the Spanish fishing fleet when they do assist. If they don’t then should this be considered as a priority?
24. Once we had communication with Falmouth MRCC and were able to articulate our concerns clearly in native language, we became more comfortable that the rescue efforts would be more effectively managed. Concurrences with my thoughts were indicated by ARC management, ‘the involvement of FMRCC certainly helped’.
25. We were approached by the Spanish media and we understand that this became a national story in various media outlets in Spain. We felt that general advice in handling the media would be advantageous and that some form of communication from ARC about what was going on in the outside world would help.
26. ‘Tallulah’ expended a fair amount of resource during its role in the situation. We utilised considerable amounts of fuel, Sat Phone minutes, flares, and equipment from the boat during the course of affecting this rescue. I doubt that the owner of Tallulah would be overly concerned about this but I feel that for some yachts, this could be a significant issue both financially and through the consumption of useful, perhaps critical resource during an extended trip such as this.
27. Whilst appreciating that ARC organisers would not want to generate adverse publicity in respect of the event and its perceived safety, I do feel that the ARC could leverage its ability to access to more generalised (than the yachting press) media channels to raise awareness of the plight of these people and thus place an increased pressure upon ‘rich nations’ to better address the issues from both political and resource perspectives.
28. The above could ultimately lead to simple measures such as a 40-50kt patrol boat or two being funded by the EU. Potentialy, this could realise response in these waters to 10 hours as opposed to 1.5 to 2 days and would reduce the reliance upon 'amateur' rescuers with inappropriate vessels. Based on some research that has been sent to me by family ashore, notably an August release from the Spanish Embassy, I do not believe that the Spanish have any kind of formal patrol in these waters, despite having territorial patrol agreements with a number of key African nations.
29. My crew are all keen to know more about what the end result was for the migrants. I feel that some kind of communication in respect of final outcome from ARC organisers or the MRCC would be greatly appreciated by vessels involved.
30. In an age where many are forgetting traditional long range communications devices such as SSB, it was clear from this situation that without the SSB radio, the situation could have been very different. SSB was the tool that allowed us to ‘let the world know’ quickly. Sat Phone had its uses but equally had its limitations particularly with regard to cost, and the likelihood of running out of Sat Phone minutes. It is clear to me that for offshore sailing, you should equip yourself as fully as possible with communication devices. Whilst the SSB install was expensive, it more than paid for itself in this situation. What would have become of If Only with only a Satphone (with 15 minutes credit on it), and a VHF?
31. Since completing the trip, returning and conducting some research, it is clear that there are hundreds if not thousands of these boats making for the Canaries. Therefore it seems there is a reasonable possibility of further boat encounters in the future. For smaller boats unable to make the speed that we were able to, the situation would be very different and would be unmanageable. There would be a much higher risk of boarding, assault, vessel seizure and so on. What you do not know is what the people are. Migrants, Pirates or worse. Certainly the people on the boat were aggressive and desperate and a mass boarding of your vessel would certainly put you and your vessel at risk. I would not advise that smaller vessels take the traditional 20N 30W route until the authorities are able to offer a strategy and resources.
32. Merchant Shipping is advised to treat all such encounters as piracy attempts until such time as you have conclusive proof that you will not be harmed, seized, shot or so on. Merchant Shipping is also advised to treat the situation as a Mayday Relay, from the word go. Why is similar advice not given to yachts? Certainly, “grave and imminent” danger falls into the pot here. I believe that yachts should be instructed to treat this as a Mayday Relay situation.
33. Press reports in Yachting World, the World Cruising Club website and in other locations suggest that the Spanish Authorities operate “Constant Naval Patrols in this area”. We saw absolutely no evidence of this. Communication with the Spanish Authorities at the time suggest that they are entirely constrained resource.
34. Advice given by World Cruising Club “Call Las Palmas MRCC and Stand By” is naïve and insufficient. The authorities are not that well organised and you will need to work hard yourself during this period.
World Cruising Club has to date completly ignored this document and attempts to engage them. Shame, all we were trying to do was improve things for yachtsmen in the future. This leaves me doubtful as to the integrity of World Cruising Club management.
I have earlier posts on this subject
"Atlantic Rally for Cruisers Catamarans"
"Immigrant Rescue Report - Atlantic Rally for Cruisers"
Discussion Document for Development of a Point Plan Encountering Immigrant Vessels off the Coast of Africa
Distribution: ARC Management, Crew of Yacht “‘Tallulah’”, Crew of Yacht “‘If Only’”
Author: Julian Bradder
Confidential
This document is concerned with evaluating some of the lessons learned as a result of an incident directly involving two yachts, ‘Tallulah’ and ‘If Only’, together with a ‘migrant’ vessel some 300 miles off the coast of Mauritania, Africa. Other vessels were involved, most notably and directly ‘MV Loren L’Oritzen’, and less directly, ‘Salt Whistle’ and ‘Flute’.
We felt there are a number of salient points in respect of the incident.
1. The migrant vessel was some 300 miles off the coast of Mauritania.
2. The vessel was small but nevertheless had some 52 people aboard.
3. The people aboard the vessel had been at sea for 15 days
4. 2 people aboard the vessel were dead
5. The migrant vessel was relatively quick, able to achieve around 8.5kts
6. It is difficult to prevent individuals from the migrant vessel getting aboard, whilst we (‘Tallulah’) were able to out run the vessel, ‘If Only’ did not have the capability to do as such and consequently were vulnerable to boarding and as such were boarded by two people.
7. It is a very frightening situation for people aboard the yachts as they do not actually know what they are encountering. For example are we looking at migrants, pirates or something else? Ultimately, the location is remote, and people feel very vulnerable as a result.
8. The people aboard the migrant vessel were very desperate and appeared willing to take huge risks to save their lives. I had to make the ‘safe’ assumption ‘desperate people take desperate measures’ and above all I as the Skipper had to prioritise the safety of the registered crew of ‘Tallulah’ above that of the migrants, whilst still attempting to do the best possible job for those in need of rescue. Note that this decision making process is a luxury that many smaller boats wouldn’t have as they would be overwhelmed and boarded.
9. Whilst we understand the general responsibilities within Maritime Law in terms of being required to assist other vessels in trouble, I feel that certainly in respect of the knowledge of our own crew that there are some grey areas here particularly vis-à-vis the need to mitigate risk to one’s own vessel and crew versus that of the need to save the lives of those who require rescue. Perhaps a legal instructional could be provided that provided yachts with a more concrete understanding would be beneficial.
10. There was a language barrier between the British yachts and the people aboard the vessel. This meant that it was very difficult and perhaps risky to establish a dialogue or close proximity with the migrants and thus this raised the perceived risk in the minds of those aboard the two yachts of engagement in close quarters communication.
11. We assume that if two people aboard were dead, it was very likely that many others were in a poor state of health. Whilst we dropped water astern of us on two separate occasions, only the second was collected possibly due to difficulties in seeing the water we had dropped. In view of this, and the ultimate objective of saving lives, we also felt that we lacked a medical knowledge in respect of the best water / food rations to make available to the people.
12. Neither yacht wanted to allow 50 people to board or indeed a group of people larger than onboard crew. Clearly a yacht is a big boat to somebody sat in a launch 300 miles offshore. There are obvious safety, personal and general security risks to having so many people board a yacht. Thus questions of liability and so on do arise as a result and I feel that clarification of these liabilities would greatly assist yachts.
13. This perhaps raises questions in respect of whether or not yachts should arm themselves with some kind of defensive weaponry. This I understand is a very big step but is perhaps a matter that should be debated.
14. Maintaining a night time watch on such a vessel as requested by MRCC is next to impossible particularly where no moon exists. The best option we had was to maintain a speed close to the maximum speed of the launch vessel and hope that they followed (and retained the capability to follow) whilst not boarding. Other yachts would probably not have this option as was the case with ‘If Only’. In this case, ‘If Only’ was followed as the people aboard the launch realised that they were more easily able to maintain a close contact with ‘If Only’ than ‘Tallulah’.
15. We dropped a note with the second water despatch. We believe that we were lucky in that we had foreign language speakers aboard who were able to write “Help is Coming, Stay 400M away from our vessel” in English, French and Spanish. However, we are to this day unclear as to whether or not the people could a) read b) read the languages that we had written in and do consider that perhaps something more articulate could be written to convince the migrants that we had their best interests at heart but that they should follow our instructions carefully. The event would have been much easier to manage if we could have remained stationary and at a safe distance.
16. We believe that the migrants assumed that ‘If Only’ was their rescue vessel and that our approach to them led to a conclusion that this was their help. It wasn’t and our approach was simply to warn ‘If Only’ of the developing situation.
17. A low cost Position Indicator Device that could be given to the migrants together with instructions would help greatly, perhaps a simple radar reflector or light that would allow local tracking or some kind of electronic GPS / EPIRB transmission device that would allow the authorities to maintain a track on the launch vessel.
18. The Spanish authorities released a single vessel, Luz de Mar. The ETA ranged from 20 hours to 3 days. This wild variance did not give either ‘Tallulah’ or ‘If Only’ confidence in the control that the Spanish authorities had over the situation. Certainly, the Spanish Authorities had no fast patrol vessel at sea as we were advised early on that the ‘tug’ (great confidence booster that), ‘Luz de Mar’ had ‘just left Tenerife’. We were also asked to try and persuade the Danish MV Loren L’Oritzen to pick up the migrants. The Master (who was very helpful) of this vessel was understandably concerned (as were we) at this due to a) The very high topsides of the vessel and difficulty getting people on board and b) The commercial pressures to reach destination that such vessels have.
19. The Tenerife MRCC liaison worked very hard through the night and should be congratulated for his efforts, commitment, dedication, control and communication under pressure (from me at least!). There were however language barriers, and with English being the spoken language of the sea, we do feel that the Spanish Authorities could invest more in language training. That said, his English was much better than the Skippers Spanish. We did at times have severe struggles being understood.
20. We originally contacted Las Palmas MRCC, who we felt were slow to respond and slow to give us advice. In fact, I had to chase them when over an hour had passed from my initial contact with them. This felt like a very long time. It felt like there was no particular plan in place.
21. We wasted a lot of time trying to establish communication methods with LPMRCC and TMRCC. Event organisers such as World Cruising Club should supply lists of communication methods for each yacht participating.
22. There did not seem to be a clear plan coming from TMRCC until the incident was quite well developed. Certainly I feel some actions should be part of an automatic plan; such as instructing the local ‘intercept’ yacht to issue a PAN PAN / DSC alert locally to attract the attention of more suitable local rescue vessels and establishing roles, identities and communication protocols early on. I am a professional Skipper and consequently well versed in SAR method and protocol and thus almost instinctively knew how to take control of the local situation for a successful outcome. I am not convinced that all yachts whether ARC participants or not would be as well versed in effective management of such a situation and thus, a more pro-active role from the MRCC would be better.
23. We encountered one Spanish Fishing vessel who responded to our DSC but they were completely unwilling to assist in the operation – to any extent, citing the loss of a days fishing as the reason they would not assist. It is clear that the Spanish authorities have a great reliance on the fishing fleet to assist in these situations. We would like to understand whether or not the Spanish authorities have a ‘compensatory’ arrangement with the Spanish fishing fleet when they do assist. If they don’t then should this be considered as a priority?
24. Once we had communication with Falmouth MRCC and were able to articulate our concerns clearly in native language, we became more comfortable that the rescue efforts would be more effectively managed. Concurrences with my thoughts were indicated by ARC management, ‘the involvement of FMRCC certainly helped’.
25. We were approached by the Spanish media and we understand that this became a national story in various media outlets in Spain. We felt that general advice in handling the media would be advantageous and that some form of communication from ARC about what was going on in the outside world would help.
26. ‘Tallulah’ expended a fair amount of resource during its role in the situation. We utilised considerable amounts of fuel, Sat Phone minutes, flares, and equipment from the boat during the course of affecting this rescue. I doubt that the owner of Tallulah would be overly concerned about this but I feel that for some yachts, this could be a significant issue both financially and through the consumption of useful, perhaps critical resource during an extended trip such as this.
27. Whilst appreciating that ARC organisers would not want to generate adverse publicity in respect of the event and its perceived safety, I do feel that the ARC could leverage its ability to access to more generalised (than the yachting press) media channels to raise awareness of the plight of these people and thus place an increased pressure upon ‘rich nations’ to better address the issues from both political and resource perspectives.
28. The above could ultimately lead to simple measures such as a 40-50kt patrol boat or two being funded by the EU. Potentialy, this could realise response in these waters to 10 hours as opposed to 1.5 to 2 days and would reduce the reliance upon 'amateur' rescuers with inappropriate vessels. Based on some research that has been sent to me by family ashore, notably an August release from the Spanish Embassy, I do not believe that the Spanish have any kind of formal patrol in these waters, despite having territorial patrol agreements with a number of key African nations.
29. My crew are all keen to know more about what the end result was for the migrants. I feel that some kind of communication in respect of final outcome from ARC organisers or the MRCC would be greatly appreciated by vessels involved.
30. In an age where many are forgetting traditional long range communications devices such as SSB, it was clear from this situation that without the SSB radio, the situation could have been very different. SSB was the tool that allowed us to ‘let the world know’ quickly. Sat Phone had its uses but equally had its limitations particularly with regard to cost, and the likelihood of running out of Sat Phone minutes. It is clear to me that for offshore sailing, you should equip yourself as fully as possible with communication devices. Whilst the SSB install was expensive, it more than paid for itself in this situation. What would have become of If Only with only a Satphone (with 15 minutes credit on it), and a VHF?
31. Since completing the trip, returning and conducting some research, it is clear that there are hundreds if not thousands of these boats making for the Canaries. Therefore it seems there is a reasonable possibility of further boat encounters in the future. For smaller boats unable to make the speed that we were able to, the situation would be very different and would be unmanageable. There would be a much higher risk of boarding, assault, vessel seizure and so on. What you do not know is what the people are. Migrants, Pirates or worse. Certainly the people on the boat were aggressive and desperate and a mass boarding of your vessel would certainly put you and your vessel at risk. I would not advise that smaller vessels take the traditional 20N 30W route until the authorities are able to offer a strategy and resources.
32. Merchant Shipping is advised to treat all such encounters as piracy attempts until such time as you have conclusive proof that you will not be harmed, seized, shot or so on. Merchant Shipping is also advised to treat the situation as a Mayday Relay, from the word go. Why is similar advice not given to yachts? Certainly, “grave and imminent” danger falls into the pot here. I believe that yachts should be instructed to treat this as a Mayday Relay situation.
33. Press reports in Yachting World, the World Cruising Club website and in other locations suggest that the Spanish Authorities operate “Constant Naval Patrols in this area”. We saw absolutely no evidence of this. Communication with the Spanish Authorities at the time suggest that they are entirely constrained resource.
34. Advice given by World Cruising Club “Call Las Palmas MRCC and Stand By” is naïve and insufficient. The authorities are not that well organised and you will need to work hard yourself during this period.
