Greenheart
Well-Known Member
With a 5000 tonner snoozing along at half a mile a minute, I'd say we'd be prudent to avoid most of the English Channel!
Condor ferry & Fog!
- Thread starter rich
- Start date
Robin
Well-Known Member
Apparently it isn't obvious at all, otherwise at least THREE people who should have been were not, two on the ferry and one on the fishing vessel.
Navigating in fog has been likened on this thread to moving around a room in the dark; 'people still bump into things'...
They don't run in the dark waving knives though, which this was the equivalent of !
The front ends of fastcat ferry hulls are like two sharp high powered knives, which is why perhaps they are sometimes called wave piercing cats. Any vessel in waters where these ferries operate should remember that when deciding to give just an occasional glance at a radar screen whilst busy busy doing something else, irrespective of their obligations under colregs to do so, never mind self preservation. That applies be they leisure boats, commercial boats or fishing boats and be they tiny or huge.
I do wonder why the fishermen on deck didn't hear the ferry sooner, or maybe they did but assumed that their skipper was monitoring it on radar. Condor is very audible, 8mls plus was not uncommon from our experience even with our yacht engine running because we often heard it before it appeared on our radar, normally set to 6mls range unless monitoring something closer. Sailing as we did out of Poole we had a very healthy regard for the possibility that Condor could come up on us very fast and very likely on our track across Channel. I would expect local fishermen in the Channel Islands waters to have the same awareness.
fireball
Well-Known Member
Their autopilot isn't quite the same as ours - dunno if you've been on a fastcat bridge - one method I've seen is a mini wheel that they can rotate to change the ap heading which is more or less instant. The controls (on the vessel I went on) are next to the radar.Is it naive of me to express horror at the idea of an enormous vessel making 37 knots through dense fog, on autopilot?
I would've thought it sensible to have the AP on in fog - as it will steer a steady course and is quick to change anyway - otherwise you've got one person stood there trying to hold a course with few visual references.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Thanks. I was imagining the Condor autopilot was like the Torrey Canyon's - which catastrophically delayed the master's response to the sighted hazard.
Cruiser2B
Well-Known Member
The similar boat you've described, could've been going 37 kts and we still wouldn't have heard about it. The speed differential is not nearly important as the size differential. Even if Condor was proceeding at the same speed as Marquises - 6 kts, it would still be a 5000-tonne knife cutting through a 4-tonne pop can.
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Leighb
Well-Known Member
The wartime incident when the 82,000 ton Queen Mary sliced a Light Cruiser in two had a similar size differntial. The QM had bow damage but carried on with little reduction in speed, the cruiser sank with great loss of life.
Cruiser2B
Well-Known Member
HMS Curacoa displaced 4100 tons - you call that similar?
Seajet
...
The proportions and end result were pretty similar weren't they ?
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
I think we probably would have heard, if two fishing boats had collided, one travelling at 37 knots. Just the sort of report that makes the YBW headlines.
I haven't intended to suggest that at a lesser speed, the ferry would have been instantly halted with a light bump.
But wouldn't it be fair to say that at 37 knots, the scything passage of the wave-piercing bows did not even have to hit the Marquises squarely amidships, in order to do devastating damage? Whatever was hit, was sliced through.
Whereas, had the Condor been making six knots, the Marquises would more probably have been shunted very rapidly to one or other side of the Condor's hull, according to whereabouts along her length she'd been struck; and while doubtless her crew would've been chucked about and very possibly injured, the smaller vessel might easily have survived, albeit seriously damaged or written-off.
Agreed, a big enough vessel, moving, becomes the 'unstoppable force', but if it's going slowly, the much smaller object may be shoved aside rather than cut in two.
If the smaller vessel is itself a ship, its lateral resistance to the water won't let it move quickly enough when struck from the side...curtains.
Cruiser2B
Well-Known Member
The proportions and end result were pretty similar weren't they ?
I'm not sure what the point is? I initially thought Leighb's post was an argument against my previous post, but on re-reading it, see it might have been meant to support my point. It's not the best illustration as the Queen Mary was going quite fast - not 37 kts mind you, but being 20 times the mass of Curacoa made slicing through the armoured plating easy enough. It shouldn't be hard to accept that the sharp wave-piercing bow of a vessel over 1000 times the mass of Marquises would cut through its thin aluminium with ease, at just about any speed.
Cruiser2B
Well-Known Member
Were any of these discussed on these fora?: http://www.maib.gov.uk/publications...orts_by_vessel_type_/fv_collision_contact.cfm
I think Carrie Kate/Kets was discussed here - that illustrates what happens when one vessel going 38 kts hits another vessel (smaller, but not much smaller). Yes there was a fatality, but the other two passengers survived. http://www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Carrie Kate-Kets.pdf
Agreed that as some speed, the Marquises would have been shoved rather than sliced, but a wave-piercer won't shove it off with a bow-wave - it would have to be metal-on-metal. I don't know just how slow that would be, but suggest if it hit at or near the centre of mass, then any speed over a couple knots would be catastrophic.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
All true, I'm afraid.
The Carrie Kate/Kets case was a sad coincidence (I didn't read every page). The fact that both skippers were drunk, in a hurry, driving without lights and in the same place at the same time, seems to point to an obvious conclusion - that it's sheer recklessness to apply any speed without being certain of one's clarity of view, based on one's own conspicuousness to others close by.
In darkness as opposed to fog, driving blind is just as perilous; short of night-vision glasses, one must rely on others showing a light. It must be culpably daft to open the throttle, counting on all other vessels to show a light, while not doing so one's self.
The Carrie Kate/Kets case was a sad coincidence (I didn't read every page). The fact that both skippers were drunk, in a hurry, driving without lights and in the same place at the same time, seems to point to an obvious conclusion - that it's sheer recklessness to apply any speed without being certain of one's clarity of view, based on one's own conspicuousness to others close by.
In darkness as opposed to fog, driving blind is just as perilous; short of night-vision glasses, one must rely on others showing a light. It must be culpably daft to open the throttle, counting on all other vessels to show a light, while not doing so one's self.
Seajet
...
Hats Off to Hovercraft
I think it's more than interesting that of all the ferry operator / skippers I've come across in the Solent and Channel, the IOW hovercraft have always struck me as outstandingly helpful, professional & considerate; and they have the most difficult craft to steer !
I think it's more than interesting that of all the ferry operator / skippers I've come across in the Solent and Channel, the IOW hovercraft have always struck me as outstandingly helpful, professional & considerate; and they have the most difficult craft to steer !
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
...but one of the easiest to hear coming!
Samson Smith
New Member
Condor ferry
Condor Ferries run from Portsmouth to Cherbourg on a daily basis. Condor Ferries are also operate in various crossings to the Channel Islands every day with fast crossing times of two hours.
Condor Ferries run from Portsmouth to Cherbourg on a daily basis. Condor Ferries are also operate in various crossings to the Channel Islands every day with fast crossing times of two hours.
