Historic schooner sunk by container ship...

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Stemar said:
There was a reason I put that in inverted commas :).

Another provocative one: I can't see any sign of the commercial vessel claiming to be constrained by its draft, so it was the give way vessel.

Whatever the legalities, I don't hold with that either. AFIAK, in such situations, when I'm the minnow meeting a whale, might is right, especially in a channel. I won't be wasting my time looking for a cylinder, I'll be working out how to keep out of its way in such a way that SS Big Bugga will know he doesn't have to worry about me.
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Fair enough - I but subtle for the hard of thinking like me.

I think it would qualify as a narrow channel though, even if local rules didn’t apply. Therefore the sailing vessel is obliged not to impede the commercial vessel. Quite evidently he did.
 
It will be interesting to see the events that lead up to this, but the basic scenario surely is that the schooner was tacking up one siode of the channel. The skiper would have known that he would have to tack to clear the commercial vessel. At this point guesswork comes in: a fluke in the wind preventing which pushed him back? Inexperienced crew not comlleting the manoever quickly enough, or correctly? A cross current which pushed him back?

Whichever, clearly the schooner fell back out of control directly under the bows of the commercial vessel and was run drown before anything could be done by either vessel to prevent the collision. Judging from the angles in the photo, I would guess the schooner tried to continue to turn down wind to try and reduce the impact, but just didnt have time to avoid being t boned, even if he did have his engine running. Seems to me there just was not enough room for him to turn enough to reduce the impact.

The key questions are 1. what caused the schooner to miss stays, and 2, why did the schooner skipper not anticipate the possibility of missing stays and allow himself enough room to recover a missed tack? Thats not necessarily a criticism, because we dont know how much room he had in the first place, nor the placing of other vessels who may have forced him to delay his tack.
 
oldharry said:
The key questions are 1. what caused the schooner to miss stays, and 2, why did the schooner skipper not anticipate the possibility of missing stays and allow himself enough room to recover a missed tack? Thats not necessarily a criticism, because we dont know how much room he had in the first place, nor the placing of other vessels who may have forced him to delay his tack.
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Given the proximity it is not inconceivable that it was the presence of the ship that caused the schooner to mis the tack. Or alternatively the presence of the ship forced him to try to tack before he had got up to speed following the previous tack.

As to what the schooner skipper might have done to anticipate - what would you suggest? You can't tack a 122' schooner up a river with the same ease you can a mirror dinghy, or even a smaller sailing boat.

I wonder if the schooner had a (working) engine - if so it is difficult to see why they weren't using it in the circumstances
 
It was just a scratch that will buff straight out....

OK so a mast fell down but she wasn't reduced to matchsticks... in fact they got her to the shore before she settled on the bottom.... a few sprung planks methinks.

New soft furnishings and she will be good to go......
 
stuarta said:
There's been some pre-collison footage released:

https://youtu.be/ry4_eJaOJmw
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Interesting... so she didn't 'miss stays' or get 'in irons'....

She just sailed straight under the box boats' bow with a belated attempt to bear away..... putting the helm down and getting her 'in irons' may well have saved the day....

Good to see the master of the box boat took my advice and gave her not one set of 5 blasts... but two sets....
 
OK that film's got me proper confused now. Contrary to previous reports, it looks like she was actually making good way on starboard tack, and then tacked across the merch's bows rather than bear away round her stern. No sign of missing stays or being in irons.

Looks like land may have been close by (see left of shot at beginning), perhaps running out of water on a lee shore: the missed stays may have been before the.clip started.
 
Frank Holden said:
Interesting... so she didn't 'miss stays' or get 'in irons'....

She just sailed straight under the box boats' bow with a belated attempt to bear away..... putting the helm down and getting her 'in irons' may well have saved the day....

Good to see the master of the box boat took my advice and gave her not one set of 5 blasts... but two sets....
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I think that's a last minute attempt to tack (the tiller goes down to leeward), when bearing away behind the box boat would have been a far better choice.
 
LittleSister said:
Video now 'unavailable - removed by user'.
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Well, if you didn't see it before it was removed my summary of the video (if I recall correctly) would be
- sailing along on starboard, probably beam reach or perhaps close reach, with ship coming towards them from about 20 degrees off the port bow
- ship quite close and distance rapidly closing - quite a lot of crew on deck going over to look (with concern?) at rapidly closing ship
- suddenly large tiller pushed down to start to tack, across the bows of the now very close ship
- video ends
Very short video so difficult to get wider context. But certainly seemed that a slight bear away of circa 20 degrees to port would have cleared the ship (assuming no other hazards, though if there had been hidden shallows personally I would choose a grounding over an impact with moving ship) whereas the tack put broadside on to the approaching ship.
I would emphasise this is just an interpretation of a short (circa 30 second) video with no before or after context.
Key questions for the investigation will include what was the course of both boats in the minutes previously, and when was the ship actually seen by the watch keeper / skipper on the sailing boat - again not things that can be deduced from the video
 
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If you go on you tube & put Elbe no 5 in the search box its the second vid down.
Having watched it i am absolutely staggered as to why they attempted to tack, maybe they didnt want to run aground? they could have borne off a bit & the ship would have missed them. The closing speed was such the box boat had no chance to avoid them, It dont look good.
 
The only thing being steered worse than the schooner, is the camera. Outstanding opportunity for spectacular crash footage, missed.

There does seem to be something of the 'rabbit in the headlights' about the helmsman's inertia in the first 30 seconds there. Is it possible that any movement of the helm, slight or extreme, port or starboard, could have been more calamitous than 'wait and see'?
 
JumbleDuck said:
That looks quite staggeringly incompetent, and the last desperate attempt to turn even tighter across the bows of the container ship doesn't help. Unless there was some circumstance not shown, it looks to be as if the Elbe No.5 was completely to blame.
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A couple of points that some people might not appreciate: I have been in the privileged position of sailing a boat of a similar size and I’ve also sailed a long keeled schooner (albeit that one was only 40’)

121’ sailing schooners with long keels don’t behave in the same way as a modern finned keeled yacht.
They respond to the helm rather slowly (which you may notice in the video)
They still obey the laws of sailing regarding centre of effort of the sails though... Bearing away would be difficult if not almost impossible without a major alteration of sail trim. With lots of people on deck (who perhaps aren’t sailors or aren’t used to handling the schooners gear) then the skipper needs to think a long way ahead.

It certainly looks as though bearing away would have been a better option, but it would probably have needed earlier coordinated action from helm and sail trim.

PS although the narrow channel rule might apply in this case, those who say might is right are a b nuisance on the water as their actions are so unpredictable. Stick to the rules!
 
The vid shows a spit of riverbank to port and the ship was quite close to it so it could be that there was nowhere to go by bearing away. Possibly the schooner was trying to get to the other side in order to pass red to red but there was never going to be enough space to do that. The helm movement was clearly too little too late. How they got into that position in the first place is another matter.
 
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