Condor ferry & Fog!

[Greenheart]

None so blind, as...

Cruiser2B, are you serious, or having a sick little joke? Isn't it obvious that a safe speed is the one that permits any vessel to avoid an obstacle within the visible distance? Isn't it obvious that had there been only 30m vis, even ten knots would be too fast in a vessel that can't pull up sharply?

The Condor displaces 5,000 tons and runs well over thirty knots. You'd want a lot of clear air to use that speed, wouldn't you? If not, why not?

Whatever Les Marquises was constructed from, whether or not the Condor had a watch outside, however infallible or flawed their radar is, this man's dead because the ferry hadn't time to avoid something in its path. That's plain as day. What corollary is possible, other than the larger vessel's reckless use of excessive speed, caused only by the operator's timetable and based on cocky confidence from sheer good fortune hitherto?

I don't yet see any difference between this, and motorists speeding in fog. They routinely crash, catastrophically, because their road speed didn't leave them time to avert collision. It doesn't have to happen, and when it does, there's nothing foggy about whose fault it is.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Out of curiosity, as a ‘What Now Skip?’what would you have done in this situation?
Imagine you are on your own boat with the gear that is particular to your boat. You are caught out in fog unexpectedly and you hear the sound of the Condor ferry some distance off but know it’s heading your way.

You kick yourself for not having taken any notice of the weather forecast which predicted poor viz and then you kick yourself again for putting yourself in a commercial shipping lane in such conditions and then you put the pedal to the metal and head for shallow water providing its not toward where you think the ferry is. Whilst you're doing that, put in a call on the VHF to try to raise the Condor to advise him of your position. Then pray

 

[Talulah]

You kick yourself for not having taken any notice of the weather forecast which predicted poor viz and then you kick yourself again for putting yourself in a commercial shipping lane in such conditions and then you put the pedal to the metal and head for shallow water providing its not toward where you think the ferry is. Whilst you're doing that, put in a call on the VHF to try to raise the Condor to advise him of your position. Then pray

Haven't you just committed the same sin 'pedal to the metal'?

 

[Greenheart]

So Deleted User, as far as you're concerned, ferries are like freight-trains, and oughtn't even to have speed restrictions on them? Is their path for them and them only, so other vessels must steer clear or it'll be your own fault when you're squished, like standing on railway tracks?

 

[earlybird]

Out of curiosity, as a ‘What Now Skip?’what would you have done in this situation?
Imagine you are on your own boat with the gear that is particular to your boat. You are caught out in fog unexpectedly and you hear the sound of the Condor ferry some distance off but know it’s heading your way.

If I were religious, I'd pray, even with radar.
In a sense, the fog is almost irrelevant to one's actions IMHO. To take sensible avoiding action with a yacht, doing say 5 knts. away from a vessel doing 40+ knts. is effectively impossible, there isn't time.
I've crossed the track of Stena ferries inward and outward bound from Loch Ryan, in good visibility, I hasten to add. When I have seen a ferry, I'm very aware that I really am dependent on being seen, and avoided, by them. It's only within, say, a couple of miles range that I could make a reasonable visual estimate of CPA, that's 2 or 3 minutes or 3-400 yds. of dodging movement on my part, assuming that I dodged in the optimum direction in the first place.
To be fair, the ferries that I have encountered seem to keep well clear.

 

[jimi]

Think I'll be calling Bass Point the next time I go past it, to check my radar reflection.

However, I cannot see why the Condor could'nt see a fishhing boat on their radar. I see seagulls and semi submerged buoys on mine when the sea is calm

 

[Talulah]

The follow on to my question of "What would you do?" is "What do you think most people would do?"
I suspect the answer is pretty well "Nothing." They would listen, listen some more, then listen even harder hoping for a change in direction. Ultimately the listening would last to the point where it was now too late to do anything.

 

[jimi]

The follow on to my question of "What would you do?" is "What do you think most people would do?"
I suspect the answer is pretty well "Nothing." They would listen, listen some more, then listen even harder hoping for a change in direction. Ultimately the listening would last to the point where it was now too late to do anything.

Well there's not a lot you can do, really, apart from trying to present as small a target as possible and go as fast as possible in the same direction to attempt to minimiser impact .. but 37 knots - 7 knots is still 30 knots

 

[ChrisE]

On a recently cruise on the Queen Elizabeth I visited the bridge. I asked a number of questions regarding visibility of small GRP boats and the confident replies led me to believe that modern radars "saw" them.

Can anyone with sea going experience of knowledge of big ships radar offer an opinion please.

I'm not an expert but I have been on the bridge of a Condor ferry in fog and, yes, their radars can pick up even a 12' dinghy at 3 miles travelling at 30 knots. I observed this myself.

I don't know what the sea state was like at the time but if it was flat then they *should* have been able to detect the FV. As should the fishermen been able to detect the ferry.

An inquest will find out more, I wouldn't want to speculate.

 

[Greenheart]

I wonder if I'm missing something here...

Why are we discussing how to run from something we probably can't in all practicality avoid? Isn't the relevant question "Why the hell is this vessel allowed to go faster than visibility dictates as a safe maximum?"

Sorry if my post #41 at the top of page 5 was too long to sustain interest...I'd be interested to hear what you all thought of its point, though.

 

[humbug716]

Condor timetables are bound by low water in St Helier, or used to be, so schedules are extremely tight at the best of times. I have experienced the fast ferry at work and they are normally a well run and efficient team. However it would seem that IRPCS has been ignored or they (both parties)have been a little complacent in their operation. I know there are two sides to a story but it would seem that the faster more better equipped craft should of seen the FV and any small craft in fog are likely to be erratic or unsure of their movements. If the targets were not showing adequately then surely they should of slowed down. The last time I did 30+ knots in thick fog it was on a Type 21 frigate with a huge search radar and even then we scared people.

 

[Talulah]

I wonder if I'm missing something here...

Why are we discussing how to run from something we probably can't in all practicality avoid? Isn't the relevant question "Why the hell is this vessel allowed to go faster than visibility dictates as a safe maximum?"

Sorry if my post #41 at the top of page 5 was too long to sustain interest...I'd be interested to hear what you all thought of its point, though.

Well I don't think we are discussing 'How to run' but what would you do?
This may fall neatly back into your post because if the answer is 'nothing' then we are totally dependant upon the Condor acting professionaly.

 

[Greenheart]

That's the whole point, nicely put, I thank you. Conspicuously, the Condor crews aren't showing due care. That's the issue. I hope someone gets a serious example made of them.

Nearly a century since the Titanic went tail-up, and the basic lesson hasn't been learned yet! Shameful, isn't it? If she hadn't been going too fast, she might never have needed the lifeboats she wasn't equipped with.

Re the Condor, I doubt I'd do anything except launch the tender to have something to dive into if the moment arose.

 

[Mark-1]

The follow on to my question of "What would you do?" is "What do you think most people would do?"
I suspect the answer is pretty well "Nothing." They would listen, listen some more, then listen even harder hoping for a change in direction. Ultimately the listening would last to the point where it was now too late to do anything.

Exactly this situation happened to us off Poole. We listened. Is it a plane of the Condor? After an eternity we had an "Oh ****, that's certainly the Condor" realization. AIS was a fairly new innovation a the time and it was only after we'd decided it was the Condor that we checked. It showed the Condor had already passed well behind us. The Condor had slowed to 20kts for the Fog.

Short of buying an Active radar reflector and AIS transmitter I don't know what anyone would do differently. You can't get on CH16 every time you hear an engine in Fog. You need a period to try to understand what you're hearing.

Maybe someone local to Poole would have known for sure it was the Condor as soon as they heard it and react quicker.

 

[Talulah]

That's the whole point, nicely put, I thank you. Conspicuously, the Condor crews aren't showing due care. That's the issue. I hope someone gets a serious example made of them.

Nearly a century since the Titanic went tail-up, and the basic lesson hasn't been learned yet! Shameful, isn't it? If she hadn't been going too fast, she might never have needed the lifeboats she wasn't equipped with.

Re the Condor, I doubt I'd do anything except launch the tender to have something to dive into if the moment arose.

On our boat I would have been tracking the Condor on AIS plus looking on the radar for anything else. I would also try and park next to any navigational mark knowing they would know about and avoid those. If my concern level was going up a notch I would try and raise them on the radio. If that had no response and I was now *** very *** concerned I would be firing flares into their direction. But this is easy for me to say. A small boat may have had none of the above, only a handheld VHF with nominal range and not much else to make them identifiable.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

So Deleted User, as far as you're concerned, ferries are like freight-trains, and oughtn't even to have speed restrictions on them? Is their path for them and them only, so other vessels must steer clear or it'll be your own fault when you're squished, like standing on railway tracks?

Nope, I'm saying that it's foolhardy to put yourself knowingly into a position where there might be a risk of collision with a considerably larger and faster vessel in poor visibility. Its just plain commonsense. We all know commercial vessels dont reduce speed in poor viz and we all know that there's a risk that small boats are not detected by even the most sophisticated radar equipment and we all know that commercial crews are only human and sometimes make mistakes. I know its not fashionable in today's world but its about taking personal responsibility for your own safety

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Haven't you just committed the same sin 'pedal to the metal'?

I assuming you were referring to a sailing boat, this being Scuttlebutt, in which case cruising is 4kts and pedal to the metal is 5kts Nope if it was my boat, I would not go roaring off into the fog at 32kts (especially not around Les Minquiers) but I'd certainly be doing the max speed I felt I could safely do in poor viz which is generally around 10kts

 

[Greenheart]

I like your self-preservist instinct Deleted User, and I share it; but voicing it in that way leads commercial operators to feel secure about carving-up the basic laws of the sea. 'Might' may be right, but it ought to at least consider the little guy, and obviously the Condor crew didn't.

No way we can blame the fishing boat for being there, when the Condor was blithely ignoring elementary rules we're all meant to keep.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I like your self-preservist instinct Deleted User, and I share it; but voicing it in that way leads commercial operators to feel secure about carving-up the basic laws of the sea. 'Might' may be right, but it ought to at least consider the little guy, and obviously the Condor crew didn't.

No way we can blame the fishing boat for being there, when the Condor was blithely ignoring elementary rules we're all meant to keep.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this because I do feel generally that people do have a duty to think whether they're putting themselves in harm's way and if they don't and an accident happens, then they must bear some responsibility for that accident. I think its totally unrealistic to expect that making an example of the skipper and crew of one commercial vessel is drastically going to change the behaviour of all commercial vessels. Container ships are still going to be tramping up and down the Channel at 20kts in fog and ferries are still going to be flying across the Channel at 40kts after this is all done and dusted. Thats the reality of the situation and we small boat sailors have to take account of that

 

[Greenheart]

If you're right Deleted User, more's the tragedy.

I certainly don't believe we should have a right of irresponsibility, and I'm always scrupulous about avoiding danger, and by so doing, I avoid inconveniencing the big boys.

But if they're too big and too brisk and too busy to likewise respect other, smaller vessels' rights, they deserve to be frightened, by the powers-that-be giving a severe penalty to the liberty-takers.

If the captain chose to motor at thirty-seven knots in a fog where the visible range was perhaps less than thirty seconds away, let him now start his career again, scrubbing the fo'c'sle floor. A man is dead because the captain messed-up. And let the company behind the captain pay a fat fine.

I think we'd see a lot more care in future, and a lot less leaving things to luck.