Condor ferry crew to stand trial for death of French fisherman

Seajet said:
Nothing to do with how fast the radio waves are, more the discrimination of the set; and it would certainly require a dedicated officer with eyes glued to it, even if the set was good enough.
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Are you suggesting that commercial radars are incapable of distinguishing contacts in fog? Or only when the vessel is going fast? I certainly agree that a dedicated radar watch should have been set in the fog.

john_morris_uk said:
Its nothing to do with the speed of the radio waves, its more to do with the reaction time of the person monitoring the radar. They have to notice the target and assess it as a threat or not and then make the right decision. If the target is travelling down the screen at 37 knots (more or less the reciprocal of your speed) then you are severely reducing the time to evaluate the situation. Slowing down gives you more time to work out what is happening on the screen.
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With a properly tuned radar, a small contact should be picked up at 6 miles or more. Certainly a metal-hulled fishing vessel should have painted clearly beyond that. Even at 37kts, it would still give about 10 minutes to sort out the situation and deal with it. If it was clear visibility, a small vessel might only be clearly apparent at 6 miles or so - if they are able to go 37kts in clear visibility and deal with contacts with a 10 min TCPA, then surely it is possible to do it in reduced vis.
 
I spent around 16 years driving ferries across s.north sea and English channel,( in capacity of O.O.W) almost all of the collision avoidance was done with radar to such an extent it did not really matter what the state of visibility was during the passage. especially when crossing the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
We generally did not slow down in fog during passage, this was not due to company pressure but more to do with experience and a sense of getting the hell out of it. hard to explain but if your normally doing 20 knts for example and slow down to 10 then you start getting tangled up with everything and exposing yourself to twice the time for exposure.
Just a little insight to a very complicated job.
 
pathfinderstu said:
I spent around 16 years driving ferries across s.north sea and English channel,( in capacity of O.O.W) almost all of the collision avoidance was done with radar to such an extent it did not really matter what the state of visibility was during the passage. especially when crossing the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
We generally did not slow down in fog during passage, this was not due to company pressure but more to do with experience and a sense of getting the hell out of it. hard to explain but if your normally doing 20 knts for example and slow down to 10 then you start getting tangled up with everything and exposing yourself to twice the time for exposure.
Just a little insight to a very complicated job.
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Point taken and I agree that nearly all collision avoidance is usually done by radar. But 37 knots is rather faster than 20 knots. The fastest vessel I have been on the bridge of for any appreciable time (in clear vis and in fog) is a warship doing 30 knots. Rather more agile then a ferry, but even the warship usually slows down a bit in fog!

A poster has pointed out at the target will appear in just under ten minutes at a range of six miles. Unfortunately he fails to point out that it will then take several minutes for the operator (without any automatic target acquisition and plotting) to notice that its CPA is too close. At 37 knots it all starts to get a little too close for comfort - especially if you have to start weaving around and making life for the passengers uncomfortable. Or perhaps this explains why the very fast cats have a reputation for passing very close to other vessels?

I had assumed that slowing down a little might be helpful?
 
People are saying ' commercial radar ', but judging by the scanner I saw on the hydrofoil this was the same sort of kit one sees on small fishing boats, so I wouldn't rely on it to pick up a small fishing boat or yacht, and highly unlikely to be useful at silly speeds; that was a long time ago, so I would hope modern Condors at least have better kit, whether they have better practices is another question.
 
The Guernsey Press reports today that the Condor captain Paul Le Romancer was banned from commanding a vessel for two years, that neither the captain nor the first mate now work for Condor, and that there is a civil claim against Condor to be heard in December.
 
john_morris_uk said:
A poster has pointed out at the target will appear in just under ten minutes at a range of six miles. Unfortunately he fails to point out that it will then take several minutes for the operator (without any automatic target acquisition and plotting) to notice that its CPA is too close. At 37 knots it all starts to get a little too close for comfort - especially if you have to start weaving around and making life for the passengers uncomfortable. Or perhaps this explains why the very fast cats have a reputation for passing very close to other vessels?

I had assumed that slowing down a little might be helpful?
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I didn't point that out, as it should not take several minutes. ARPA should automatically plot the contact and alarm if the CPA is within the alarm limits. Assuming a poor paint that is only spotted by the operator and manually "hooked" at 6 miles - it takes several sweeps, depending on the machine, so say a minute to minute and a half to get a plot with contact's course, speed, CPA, TCPA. There's no reason the OOW could not slow down at this time, if he feels he needs more time to assess the situation - that would not be uncomfortable for the passengers. However, 8 minutes is more than adequate to resolve a situation - with a 30+ kt speed advantage, the ferry only needs to alter a few degrees to make a large change to CPA. No need to weave, unless he found himself in the midst of a fleet of small vessels, in which case a reduction of speed would be prudent.

I'm not saying it was prudent for Condor Vitesse to be going 37 kts, in this situation - they only had one operational radar. This in addition to their poor lookout, no signals, and laissez faire attitude contributed to the outcome. However I do think it is possible to execute a safe passage at high speed in limited vis, such as Pathfinderstu said.
 
Cruiser2B said:
I didn't point that out, as it should not take several minutes. ARPA should automatically plot the contact and alarm if the CPA is within the alarm limits. Assuming a poor paint that is only spotted by the operator and manually "hooked" at 6 miles - it takes several sweeps, depending on the machine, so say a minute to minute and a half to get a plot with contact's course, speed, CPA, TCPA. There's no reason the OOW could not slow down at this time, if he feels he needs more time to assess the situation - that would not be uncomfortable for the passengers. However, 8 minutes is more than adequate to resolve a situation - with a 30+ kt speed advantage, the ferry only needs to alter a few degrees to make a large change to CPA. No need to weave, unless he found himself in the midst of a fleet of small vessels, in which case a reduction of speed would be prudent.

I'm not saying it was prudent for Condor Vitesse to be going 37 kts, in this situation - they only had one operational radar. This in addition to their poor lookout, no signals, and laissez faire attitude contributed to the outcome. However I do think it is possible to execute a safe passage at high speed in limited vis, such as Pathfinderstu said.
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I agree and I wasn't trying to misquote you or twist what you said. I didn't see any reference to ARPA and its alarms being used in the report. It required concentration by the Captain and his bridgewatchkeeper to spot the target. What appeared to happen was that they were chatting (which is normal) except they were chatting so much they failed to concentrate on what they were really supposed to be doing and killed someone.

Inexcusable...

As most will know, IRPCS doesn't specify a speed but suggests that skippers MUST use all available means of collisikn avoidancd in fog, must use lights and sound signals and should consider slowing down.
 
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john_morris_uk said:
I agree and I wasn't trying to misquote you or twist what you said. I didn't see any reference to ARPA and its alarms being used in the report. It required concentration by the Captain and his bridgewatchkeeper to spot the target. What appeared to happen was that they were chatting (which is normal) except they were chatting so much they failed to concentrate on what they were really supposed to be doing and killed someone.

Inexcusable...

As most will know, IRPCS doesn't specify a speed but suggests that skippers MUST use all available means of collisikn avoidancd in fog, must use lights and sound signals and should consider slowing down.
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No offence taken, John. I didn't find BEAMER's report to be very good. I don't really wish to go review it, so from what I recall they didn't make any mention of the fact that both the Master's and 1st Mate's displays were from the same radar, with one "slaved" at a different range scale. Very often, when a different range scale is selected, the radar set should change the wavelength. If the master set has the radar operating at the wavelength for the range scale it's set at, then the slaved display will not necessarily be at the optimum setting for the range-scale it's set at. BEAMER pointed out that Marquises was painting (poorly?) but made no mention that it wasn't auto-plotted, or that it didn't paste a constant trail.
 
The two officers on the bridge of the Condor were found guilty. Rightly so. Having read the report there was more to the situation than excess speed, failure to keep a proper lookout, add in complacency, poor bridge resource management, lack of good procedure’s and not following procedure’s.
How many other occasions were near misses? We will never know.
The fishing boat was at fault as well. But was not doing 37 knots or probably not expecting anyone else to be. At least a fog signal would have given them some warning.
To a certain extent this guilty crew was unlucky. Out of the hundreds of near misses which occur they had a collision.
Any ferry which operates at full speed in fog with radar even with two ARPA and a fog signal or not.
Is operating with a reckless disregard for other vessels particularly small vessels. It may be common practice. In fact it is common practice.
The argument expressed earlier by a cross channel ferry officer that it is safer to continue at full speed so as to be involved in less close quarter’s situations has been tried before. The Judge and jury did not agree.
Unfortunately. The travelling public want to get there on time. Expect to get there on time. Will choose to travel with the company which best meets this wish. The owners, managers want on time performance and some even have bonus based partially on delivering. They promote and encourage Captains and officers who deliver. Until it goes wrong and someone loses an eye.
The I.S.M code was developed after a tragic ferry accident in order to require Companies to have good procedures which avoid these kinds of pressures due to on time performance.
It would appear at least in this case, it did not work.
All high speed ferries are required to comply with high speed craft code and ISM code.
 
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Captain Tony Starling-Lark (no, really) is a channel pilot and told me he was on the bridge of a ship going through Dover in fog, he could see half way to the bow, 15kts and five vessels abreast in a mile and a half wide lane. He said to the captain "We really should slow down", the reply, "Yes pilot, we both know it, but I have a twenty minute slot to hit in Rotterdam and if I miss I won't work for this company again and neither will you"
 
fisherman said:
Captain Tony Starling-Lark (no, really) is a channel pilot and told me he was on the bridge of a ship going through Dover in fog, he could see half way to the bow, 15kts and five vessels abreast in a mile and a half wide lane. He said to the captain "We really should slow down", the reply, "Yes pilot, we both know it, but I have a twenty minute slot to hit in Rotterdam and if I miss I won't work for this company again and neither will you"
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Given the will that problem is easily solved,especially in heavily monitored waters like the English Channel.You enforce a speed limit in restricted visibility so everyone has to slow down irrespective of what the shipowners want.The current heavily enforced TSS came about because ships kept colliding in the Channel and the system works pretty well with everyone complying.
 
Whilst I entirely agree that 35+ kts in fog is excessive and, therefore, very dangerous - likewise not sounding a foghorn - it seems that in this case the single most useful aid to collision avoidance would have been for someone actually to have been looking at the radar....

From the voice data recording there is little (no!) evidence that anyone was.
 
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Biggles Wader said:
Given the will that problem is easily solved,especially in heavily monitored waters like the English Channel.You enforce a speed limit in restricted visibility so everyone has to slow down irrespective of what the shipowners want.The current heavily enforced TSS came about because ships kept colliding in the Channel and the system works pretty well with everyone complying.
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Excellent common sense, I wonder if the shipowners would ever let it happen...
 
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