Collisions and groundings.

[Guest]

There's a moral in all this somewhere.

I was invited to a trinity House shindig and my neighbour was an eminent QC (retired) of the Admiralty court, whose career had centred on enquiries into collisions and groundings, first as a counsel, then as president of the court. He announced that now he was retired he did not give a monkey's any more and he spoke his mind.

First, was the long suspected information that enquiries into C and G are money for old rope for the lawyers. He reckoned that every nautical disaster meant at least 2 months at top rates and every prospect (if all the counsel collaborated) of spinning it out to 4.

Second was the news (long suspected) that virtually every enquiry was a whitewash. The powerful authorities and companies that provided work could not be found at fault unless there was evident public scandal, and the person at the end of the blame chain was always the shipmaster.

Then having exhausted jocularity we discussed a few cases which I will not quote, and he said the prime cause of accidents at sea at the moment was undermanning on the bridge. There were not enough people able to absorb the amount of data that was available to them. Well, we all know that, don't we?

Specifically he quoted three cases, one of which happened to him when he was Jimmy of a destroyer during the war, and the others recently, where a collisions were caused because one watchkeeper assumed a VHF message or request had been received and understood by another ship and it had not.

We had a good moan together as the decanter went down, butit has disturbed me. Our maritime courts are supposed to be the best in the world. And our watchkeepers are supposed to be the best in the world.

I am getting very pleased about finding out....what?

 

[Guest]

Perhaps that we were right all along...

It is insanity to build larger and larger vessels and put smaller and smaller crews in them, relying more and more on technology that is notorious for its unreliability...all in the name of profitability. Might it be something like that? Cheers!

 

[Guest]

Well, I know who you were talking to.

Extremely good bloke, and certainly right. He used to terrify me, as a young articled shark in the 1970's. I have had a "thing" about misunderstood VHF messages all my working life because of what he said then.

Yes, undoubtedly all these enquiries are very expensive whitewash. Drop me an email for more....I don't want to let his name out of the bag.

 

[Guest]

the second to last paragraph IF "Our maritime courts are supposed to be the best in the world. And our watchkeepers are supposed to be the best in the world."

It makes you wonder what the rest (and worst) are like!

 

[Guest]

Well, now, just a few years ago

I was on the periphery of a Court of Enquiry in a Far Eastern nation which in fact supplies an awful lot of seamen. A ferry had collided with a container ship just outside the main port. The container ship was flying the flag of another Asian state which was not flavour of the month with the ferry's home state.

The consensus of professional opinion was that the ferry, which was grossly overloaded and sank with loss of life, was to blame.

An Englishman arrived from Hong Kong on behalf of the ferry's insurers and bribed the Judge. Decision for the ferry....

 

[Guest]

Re: Having a jar with the Chief...

at lunchtime. All his deckie friends are going on about the Navy courts marshal just completed where the guy ran his frigate on the bricks up in Norway.

None of them can understand how a warship, which is a lot of things but rarely undermanned could get into this sort of scrape. Maybe overmanning is as hazardous.

Tom

 

[Guest]

Just a thought on that

The last Naval ship I set foot on (type 42, built mid 80's) has a separate chart room and wheelhouse arrangement, which requires passing through two A60 doors to get from t'other to which. Very silly and un-ergonomic. No merchant ship has been built that way for decades. If the Andrew are still doing that, it must make their ships far more difficult to manage in pilotage waters.

 

[Guest]

I was talking to Coast Guard (US) officer the other day and he was telling me that the Coast Guard had stopped a Chineese freighter which had been steering eratically in Puget Sound. On boarding it was found that the only chart they had on board was a chart of the entire Pacific Ocean, no harbour charts at all. Of course Francis Drake didn't have charts of the area either!

 

[Guest]

the second to last paragraph IF "Our maritime courts are supposed to be the best in the world. And our watchkeepers are supposed to be the best in the world."

It seems to me that most of the watchkeepers are no longer "ours" these days. Does this equate them to the worst?

 

[Guest]

Re: Just a thought on that

No, there is usually a bridge chart table for ready use. The chart-house is where one does the corrections.

But the problem with the RN, and it is getting worse, is insufficient sea experience.

The Times last week published the latest RN appointments. 26 officers, but only 2 were going to ships. The others were to serve in acronyms.

But even those 2!!! The Treasury wont let the navy have any fuel so they could go to sea and get in a little practice.

 

[Guest]

Re Charts and things

A Greek refrigerated acrgo ship of 8000 tons, registered in Cyprus, was to sail to New York. The master had on board 4 charts. One of the Sicilian Channel, one of Gibraltar Strait, one left over fromn the last trip, and a 1:2,000,000 chart of the N. Artlantic.

He had to pay for his own charts. He navigated by traverse tables (this was about 20 years ago before GPS) and relied on picking up a pilot at Nantucket.

Oh, and he did not have a bulb in the starboard light, until I gave him one.

 

[Guest]

20 years ago I was told that the problem was gas turbines

which the RN now uses as its sole means of propulsion except for nuclear kettles in submersibles. The jet fuel is absurdly expensive, which cuts down drastically on seatime. The Type 42 I was aboard was in the East, showing the flag, having been detached from the Armilla Patrol and was mooching around at 11kt, trailing one prop, scrounging fuel from the Yanks and Aussies because she did not have a tame RFA with her.

Why not put a diesel engine in, for practising with?

 

[Guest]

British maritime courts

Is it still a fact (and I hope ACB might confirm) that more shipping contracts are written specifying that disputes be settled under English Law than any other. One only has to read the Times to see the numerous obscure decisions.

So presumably we still have something, but for how much longer??

 

[Guest]

Happy to oblige...

Yes, most maritime contracts such as voyage, time and demise charter parties, agreements for the sale and purchase of ships and for building ships, leases, marine mortgages, contracts for hull and machinery insurance and protection and indemnity insurance, salvage and towage agreements, etc., and indeed bills of lading, where the law of the port of delivery so permits, are drafted to specify English law either with the jurisdiction of the High Court or with arbitration in London.

Further than that - and this is where Bill's friend comes in - most collisions, and almost all salvage cases not carried out on Lloyds Form (which specifies English law and arbitration) are referred, by agreement between the parties, to the Jurisdiction of the High Court in London although the collision may have occurred in the Pacific or the Mediterranean, and several of the more reputable Flags of Convenience, such as Liberia, hold their Formal Enquiries in London using English judges and barristers.

With great respect to Jan, when you have done a couple of cases in Holland, probably the next best place, you know why this is so!

 

[Guest]

Seen from a different perspective : maybe a key part to your comment is this note on "our maritime courts are SUPPOSED to be the best in the world". It would be pretentious to claim that other maritime courts are better , truth probably is that they all compete in the same league , but if you start from such an a priori that you can not even prove, you can only get one big deception.

Before entering maritime school I was also under this romantic Nelsonesque idea that the British marine world was superior , but that soon ended when I started to do tricks at the wheel when entering British ports , or when dealing with British customs , that really opened my eyes... to tell the truth , I've seen some good ones , but the overal average was (to me anyway) clearly below the continent and the US

 

[Guest]

Re: Happy to oblige...

All you describe is not necessarily based on quality , you might attribute exactly the same to tradition (you will probably agree with me that the maritime world is extremely "traditionalistic") and the convenience of a much spoken language which is basic language in maritime affairs anyhow.These two reasons are -to me anyhow- probably a better explanation why most cases are held in London. In fact , to me it looked like this was exactly what Bill was saying , but what stroke me was that he was like giving a problem ,and giving the solution but not being able to see for himself that he has the solution as some "a priori's" get in the way (you can check that one out with psychoanalysts , it's a common thing to happen , blocking out solutions because you do not really like them).

By the way , as I'm Belgian , not Dutch , I can acknowledge that this must be the worst place to conduct such cases , so try to avoid this place (this is the burned earth tactics , as used initially by Attilla and his Huns , clever guy he was)

 

[Guest]

Of course you\'re right

The English courts can't be said to be better than, say, their continental cousins. What makes a better court anyway?

The number of right decisions? A judge's decision is by definition right, unless of course it's overturned by a higher court, and it would be ridiculous to judge a court system by the number of successful appeals.

The IQ of the judge or counsel? Of course not.

The time taken to reach a decision? English courts would I think score poorly here compared to civil law countries, although there's been a slight improvement since The Pickwick Papers.

Low costs? Again, English courts are likely to score badly.

All this is of course why as often as not the parties specify arbitration to avoid the courts.

What English courts do have is, as you say, the language, and also a good body of precedent/experience especially on international maritime cases. But to say that we have the best/finest whatever courts is of course wrong.

 

[Guest]

No, sorry, I fear that you have missed the point here

"Justice" is actually less important than certainty and consistency, in commercial law at least. That is the huge strength of the English legal system and that is why it is preferred for maritime law cases.

This may sound odd, but it is not. Here is why.

Under the English common law system, two parties can make an agreement, confident that the words they use have legally defined meanings, and that if there has been a case on a particular point that case will not be overturned next time.

Furthermore, in the event of a dispute the dispute can usually be settled by reference to the case law, and if not, and the case gos to trial, the published judgement can be consulted and is there for all to see. No monkey business or concessions to local interests.

Under the European civil law systems the idea is apparently to seek "justice", but the result is that decisions are all over the place and vary wildly from court to court and from day to day. If you ever have to try it, you will find that this is alarmingly true.

 

[Guest]

Re: No, sorry, I fear that you have missed the point here

I agree that certainty is of vital important for commercial law.

Civil law systems do not however, follow some unpredictable concept of "justice". It is English law that does so. It is called "equity", and it is an entire branch of the law (important in commercial contracts) which is notorious for its unpredictability. In fact that is commonly held to be one of the strengths of English law, despite the sacrifice of predictability.

Civil law systems have no direct equivalent, and there is little or no opportunity to appeal to abstract concepts of justice.

I have litigated in both civil law countries and in England, and would not say that the English courts are any more predictable.