RobBradley
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
My favourite part of the report.... "to warm up and have some tea", so british...!
My favourite part of the report.... "to warm up and have some tea", so british...!
Boat sinks in Jersey
- Thread starter rich
- Start date
petem
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
Indeed!
Having just totalled a £1m (or whatever) boat, taken to the liferaft and then rescued I'd be expecting (chocolate) biscuits with my tea.
Indeed!
Having just totalled a £1m (or whatever) boat, taken to the liferaft and then rescued I'd be expecting (chocolate) biscuits with my tea.
Blue Sunray
Well-Known Member
Hadenough
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
The hurry, lack of preparation, defference to the boss smacks of "get me to the airport on time" to me. No excuse though, as a skipper he should have the balls to tell the boss to back off.
The hurry, lack of preparation, defference to the boss smacks of "get me to the airport on time" to me. No excuse though, as a skipper he should have the balls to tell the boss to back off.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
He got his ticket in 2004, when he was 21. Fast track yacht master courses strike again?
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Everybody who called for the motorway training which is now being introduced?
Boater On Thames
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
That buoy obviously had no lighting at all. I can't find any light from the picture.
That buoy obviously had no lighting at all. I can't find any light from the picture.
Lucky Duck
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
The report says the buoy was flashing its charted sequence 1 second before the impact...
The report says the buoy was flashing its charted sequence 1 second before the impact...
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
No more motorway crashes then. Good oh.
ShinyShoe
Well-Known Member
I'm reading this as:
- He hadn't done a full darkness passage on this boat
- He presumably did for his YM. He might never have done it since. There is a good chance whatever boat he did his YM on was well set up for night passages. Dipped lights naturally, nav lights switched on as part of a process.. plus may have been on a boat of other people who knew how to sail and would instinctively switch off cabin lights etc. Unless you tell those people to do "naughty" things during the assessment to see if the skipper intervenes it becomes quite hard to assess...
Clearly not a great situation.
Can't understand how he hit the buoy - the electronic chart would show you headed to it. Surely you might ease off - if you can't see it, if nothing else to ensure you are where the chart says you are. But no worse than a Norway Grey Line the other day...
- He hadn't done a full darkness passage on this boat
- He presumably did for his YM. He might never have done it since. There is a good chance whatever boat he did his YM on was well set up for night passages. Dipped lights naturally, nav lights switched on as part of a process.. plus may have been on a boat of other people who knew how to sail and would instinctively switch off cabin lights etc. Unless you tell those people to do "naughty" things during the assessment to see if the skipper intervenes it becomes quite hard to assess...
Clearly not a great situation.
Can't understand how he hit the buoy - the electronic chart would show you headed to it. Surely you might ease off - if you can't see it, if nothing else to ensure you are where the chart says you are. But no worse than a Norway Grey Line the other day...
laika
Well-Known Member
"strike again"? Are graduates of fast track yacht master courses disproportionately responsible for sinking vessels?
And is that really relevant after 13 years which would have required 2 re-validations, each asserting a minimum of 150 commercial days at sea?
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guernseyman
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
Considering all the boobs, I don't reckon the insurance company will fork out much....if the boat was indeed insured.
Considering all the boobs, I don't reckon the insurance company will fork out much....if the boat was indeed insured.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Reduced motorway crashes, it is hope. All training can be improved.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
jfm
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
Insurers will pay, if not already then definitely after reading that report. Btw the boat has been replaced- a new Pershing 72 is already on the berth
Yup it's skipper error. I have plenty of sympathy re being disoriented slightly in the dark, but the skipper's method to dealing with that was very poor. Eg, he shouldn't have done 9knots during his bodged encounter with the incoming fishing vessel and he shouldn't have sped up until had resestablished where he was. Also he was steering manually you can conclude, and (imho) you shouldn't when you only have 4 eyes looking (or 2 as in this case, for part of the time) steer manually. Should let a/p steer the boat in the dark (with very careful observation) because steering manually creates an extra thing to have to concentrate on, which distracts from building awareness of where you are and observing radar/plotter. Just imho.
Btw I'm not totally armchairing this. I can see the whole of the marina, Small Road and the crash zone from my apartment and I have done that passage many times including doing it in the dark in a 24m mobo a couple of months ago (not as skipper but observing next to the skipper/owner).
I thought the report was disappointly badly written. Full of illogical and clearly incorrect sentences, bad and unclear English, and failure to distinguish between relevant things and things that should have been described as not causal ( e.g. late turning on nav lights). And some of the recommendations just don't belong in this report.
Incidentally, there's a fair bit of controversy in Jersey that the skipper isn't being named. Local reports say that his local license has been suspended.
Insurers will pay, if not already then definitely after reading that report. Btw the boat has been replaced- a new Pershing 72 is already on the berth
Yup it's skipper error. I have plenty of sympathy re being disoriented slightly in the dark, but the skipper's method to dealing with that was very poor. Eg, he shouldn't have done 9knots during his bodged encounter with the incoming fishing vessel and he shouldn't have sped up until had resestablished where he was. Also he was steering manually you can conclude, and (imho) you shouldn't when you only have 4 eyes looking (or 2 as in this case, for part of the time) steer manually. Should let a/p steer the boat in the dark (with very careful observation) because steering manually creates an extra thing to have to concentrate on, which distracts from building awareness of where you are and observing radar/plotter. Just imho.
Btw I'm not totally armchairing this. I can see the whole of the marina, Small Road and the crash zone from my apartment and I have done that passage many times including doing it in the dark in a 24m mobo a couple of months ago (not as skipper but observing next to the skipper/owner).
I thought the report was disappointly badly written. Full of illogical and clearly incorrect sentences, bad and unclear English, and failure to distinguish between relevant things and things that should have been described as not causal ( e.g. late turning on nav lights). And some of the recommendations just don't belong in this report.
Incidentally, there's a fair bit of controversy in Jersey that the skipper isn't being named. Local reports say that his local license has been suspended.
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petem
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
Let's say the skipper was on A/P leaving the port then went to manual steering to avoid the incoming boat. When he went back on A/P it would have turned quite sharply to get back on track (my boat does). Do the latest A/P's plotters take into account buoys and other hazards when attempting to correct XTE?
Also, I wonder if he was looking at the plotter / fiddling with the A/P when the collision occurred. Perhaps dedicated use of Mk1 eyeball looking ahead might have avoided the collision?
When I did my Day Skipper night passage (a long time ago) I found visibility much poorer staring through the windscreen (far better being on the flybridge). I'm guessing on that Pershing that there's no option to look over the windscreen? Could this have been a factor?
Let's say the skipper was on A/P leaving the port then went to manual steering to avoid the incoming boat. When he went back on A/P it would have turned quite sharply to get back on track (my boat does). Do the latest A/P's plotters take into account buoys and other hazards when attempting to correct XTE?
Also, I wonder if he was looking at the plotter / fiddling with the A/P when the collision occurred. Perhaps dedicated use of Mk1 eyeball looking ahead might have avoided the collision?
When I did my Day Skipper night passage (a long time ago) I found visibility much poorer staring through the windscreen (far better being on the flybridge). I'm guessing on that Pershing that there's no option to look over the windscreen? Could this have been a factor?
Uricanejack
Well-Known Member
Ann interesting report.
Pleanty of lessons for all of us.
Easy to sit here and criticize. But who hasn’t made mistakes.
The skipper was a paid pro. Who had met the requirements to get an RYA YM at some time 13 years earlier. According to the report he had worked on vessels of 30m and up to 75m as skipper.
Why anyone would conclude he had never ever been out in the dark I don’t know. I thought it just meant he had not done this particular trip in the dark before.
Which makes the rest of the story more interesting.
He had the knowledge and required experience but did not use them.
Complacency?
How many of us can say we never just go down hop on the boat. fire it up and head off without a plan in an area we think we are familiar with.
I do.
He did not prepare the boat before he left.
He did not prepare a passage plan.
He did not prepare himself.
The report doesn’t mention RADAR or Chart or Chart plotter. Just the consol lights were affecting his night vision.
So he wasn’t using his equipment effectively because he had not set it up. If he had any.
He came out of the marina winging it. Without a plan at night for the first time. Made a rather odd collision avoidance with an incoming vessel. Was out of position. Did not know where he was and speed up. Acceleration raising the bow so he could not see.
Hit a buoy. And sank the boat.
A old friend of mine had a saying, “ A 10 knot guy on a 20 knot vessel”
The boat was going faster than he was.
The unfortunate owner. Hired this chap for his knowledge and experience, put his trust in this chap. And lost his boat.
Fortunately not his life.
The RYA set a standard of knowledge. The skipper, was tested against and shown to have. The skippers choice not to use this knowledge, was down to the skipper.
Pleanty of lessons for all of us.
Easy to sit here and criticize. But who hasn’t made mistakes.
The skipper was a paid pro. Who had met the requirements to get an RYA YM at some time 13 years earlier. According to the report he had worked on vessels of 30m and up to 75m as skipper.
Why anyone would conclude he had never ever been out in the dark I don’t know. I thought it just meant he had not done this particular trip in the dark before.
Which makes the rest of the story more interesting.
He had the knowledge and required experience but did not use them.
Complacency?
How many of us can say we never just go down hop on the boat. fire it up and head off without a plan in an area we think we are familiar with.
I do.
He did not prepare the boat before he left.
He did not prepare a passage plan.
He did not prepare himself.
The report doesn’t mention RADAR or Chart or Chart plotter. Just the consol lights were affecting his night vision.
So he wasn’t using his equipment effectively because he had not set it up. If he had any.
He came out of the marina winging it. Without a plan at night for the first time. Made a rather odd collision avoidance with an incoming vessel. Was out of position. Did not know where he was and speed up. Acceleration raising the bow so he could not see.
Hit a buoy. And sank the boat.
A old friend of mine had a saying, “ A 10 knot guy on a 20 knot vessel”
The boat was going faster than he was.
The unfortunate owner. Hired this chap for his knowledge and experience, put his trust in this chap. And lost his boat.
Fortunately not his life.
The RYA set a standard of knowledge. The skipper, was tested against and shown to have. The skippers choice not to use this knowledge, was down to the skipper.
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BelleSerene
Well-Known Member
There's a huge difference between being qualified and being experienced. And there's a huge difference between being experienced in daytime sailing (motoring in his case) and being experienced in night-time sailing, which is what he was doing and in which he was not experienced. There's also professionalism, seamanship or common sense - which both qualification and experience should have given this man, but evidently didn't.
This is a paid skipper who took his owner to sea at night, something he knew he was inexperienced at. But he didn't make a passage plan. He didn't put his nav lights on.
He knew he was off course on departure, and he was familiar with the Ruaudière hazard, a lit mark. He didn't locate it visually, even when it was coming up ahead, and he didn't locate the hazard on his chartplotter either. He knew his visibility was compromised as he 'was having difficulty in reducing the back-scatter of lights from the bridge console'. So what did he do? He accelerated past 21 knots, raising his bow so further reducing his visibility.
Did he just made a terrible mistake in mislocating himself despite being familiar with the waters? That won't wash either. According to his statement immediately afterwards, he also hadn't even seen the approaching fishing vessel. Nor had he seen the lit mark that he ploughed into. He had no situational awareness, yet accelerated still.
Sure, the skipper was qualified. Sure, he had experience. But not in night passages. Which made his actions that night doubly reckless.
I hope that now the report is out, the owner or his insurance company sues him.
doug748
Well-Known Member
Yes, some great pointers in the report.
I do agree that the skipper probably sealed his fate before he left the harbour behind. Being a coward, I would have had all cabin lights off, instruments dimmed to a candle and would have been scanning the radar and AIS for traffic before I moved an inch.
This is not because I am better than your man or cleverer but I would have been more frightened.
He said he had done the passage "Hundreds of times"
Reading between the lines: over confidence, being given the hurry-up by the owner and maybe even showing off a bit, could well be factors.
MapisM
Well-Known Member
Re: Pershing 62 sinks
Not that it would be rocket science, but I guess it could expose the instrument manufacturers to all sort of legal issues whenever something goes wrong.
Anyway, the behaviour you are describing can only happen after altering course either manually or in auto mode, and then switch to track mode.
What jfm suggested (and what I would also do, in that situation) is using a/p on auto, both during and after the course alteration.
Btw, I'm not sure that this isn't what the skipper actually did, based on the report alone.
Jfm, what part of it makes you say he was steering manually you can conclude?
I'm not aware of any a/p+plotter combo offering such functionality.
Not that it would be rocket science, but I guess it could expose the instrument manufacturers to all sort of legal issues whenever something goes wrong.
Anyway, the behaviour you are describing can only happen after altering course either manually or in auto mode, and then switch to track mode.
What jfm suggested (and what I would also do, in that situation) is using a/p on auto, both during and after the course alteration.
Btw, I'm not sure that this isn't what the skipper actually did, based on the report alone.
Jfm, what part of it makes you say he was steering manually you can conclude?
