Jessica Watson failed to notice ship at 1 mile

[William_H]

jessica watson collision

The whole matter has been confused by popular press/TV and especially by journalists.
At first the voyage was described as the start of a round the world record breaking attempt then later described as a shake down cruise for the attempt.
Especially since the collision some journalists have gone the irresposible parents line of "how could you let your 16 year old daughter do this?"

Regarding the collision I get the impression that any single handed sailor on the high seas can not expect a commercial vessel to sea or avoid the small boat. Regardless of regulations.

Anyway she departed again on Sun with a new mast. The boat I think is an SS34 Sparkman and Stephens design. I think Morning Cloud was the prototype. Many have been built in Oz. This design has been particularly popular for lone round the world sailors. She has a very big additional coach roof over the entrance hatch which will give a lot of shelter but might be susceptible to damage in a knock down.

Her course is east north of NZ up to cross the equator in the Pacific then south around Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope south of Oz and back to Sydney. Is she up to it? Only time will tell. We have had 2 Oz boys do 2 similar voyages of recent years at 17 yo in same type of boat so why not a girl.
She certainly was not phased by the collision and dismasting and recovered and got back to Sydney without aid so she has a lot more experience now. We wish her good luck olewill

 

[Ubergeekian]

My point is that most of the news reports have castigated the 16 year-old for her single error of not seeing the ship...

That was one error. Going to sleep in a shipping lane was another error. Planning a trip to include going to sleep in a shipping lane was yet another, and probably the most worrying, error.

 

[Ubergeekian]

My comment on whether the girl is telling the truth or not is simply because I cannot imagine how one can see a ship 6 miles off on radar and miss a ship that is only 1 mile away.

You wake up from a cat-nap and have a look at the radar. You think you see one ship, about six miles away. So you stick your head briefly out of the companionway, into the cold night, look blearily around with unadjusted eyes, see the ship you are expecting to see, shiver, go below and fall asleep again.

If you are lucky, you wake up.

 

[ninky]

You wake up from a cat-nap and have a look at the radar. You think you see one ship, about six miles away. So you stick your head briefly out of the companionway, into the cold night, look blearily around with unadjusted eyes, see the ship you are expecting to see, shiver, go below and fall asleep again.

If you are lucky, you wake up.

alternatively you could stay home and get a nice job in an office, get up the duff, wait for death

 

[webcraft]

Right, but . . .

Regarding the collision I get the impression that any single handed sailor on the high seas can not expect a commercial vessel to sea or avoid the small boat. Regardless of regulations.

You are quite right but - in this case the ship had the yacht in sight, apparently from 4 miles away, with the yacht on a steady course - and the ship hit the yacht. In this instance it seems that the main cause of the collision was incompetence or poor decision making on the part of the officer of the watch.

Of course Ms Watson might have avoided the collision by staying awake, or possibly by waiting for her night vision to adjust before her scan of the horizon - but then again she could also have avoided it by, as Ninky says, staying at home and watching TV until she got married and had kids.

I am sure there are few things more likely to make you review your procedures than being hit by a large ship; my guess is that Jessica has replayed the whole thing over many times in her mind in minute detail, and that if there was a fault in her lookout and watchkeeping she will be very careful not to make the same mistake again.

Mistakes are how we learn, and one of the problems with today's health and safety obsessed world is that young people are sheltered and cocooned in a futile attempt to prevent them from ever making any.

- W

 

[fireball]

Mistakes are how we learn, and one of the problems with today's health and safety obsessed world is that young people are sheltered and cocooned in a futile attempt to prevent them from ever making any.

I'm sure health and safety would have a few words to say about the collision - after all, had she filled out a 100 page H&S questionairre at time of spotting the ship, and put steel toecap boots on, the collision may still have happened, but it wouldn't be H&S at fault ...

The high achievers in this world are the ones who take the most (usually calculated) risk. Horrible (and probably basic) mistake, but as you say - probably won't do it again!

 

[Adaero]

After reading the report my personal opinion is that both parties are at fault here.
The Cargo vessel for not taking appropriate avoiding action fast enough and Ms Watson for not having her comprehensive Nav equipment set up properly.
The Pink Lady had both Radar and AIS. You can overlay AIS targets onto the screen which will appear as large black triangles, you can also set up an AIS protection zone around your vessel (we use 1 mile) and you can turn on the AIS alarms. Using the equipment she had in this way it wouldn't be possible to sleep as all hell would have been kicking off with alarms and flashing screens. We initially pick up AIS targets from over 25 miles away and if that target is going to come within our 1 mile protection zone the alarm sounds and the black triangle starts flashing red on the screen.
Based on this information when she stuck her head up before going back to sleep the Cargo vessel would have been a bloody big blob on the radar even if the clutter wasn't turned down, there would have been a red flashing AIS target also on the screen and not only the radar alarm would be sounding but the AIS too.
The whole point of having all this gear is that you have the chance to protect yourself from the odd iffy watchman. A good active radar reflector and nav lights enables you to be seen and the radar and AIS enables you to see them, double protection.

 

[PilotWolf]

J Which is more than can be said for the bridge watch of the Pride of Bilbao when they ran down the Ouzo.

Hmm, something you know that wasn't brought up in court then?

W.

 

[bedouin]

Hmm, something you know that wasn't brought up in court then?

This is all covered in the MAIB report. It is common ground that PoB had a close encounter with a sailing vessel and that they assumed that the vessel was okay but did not check.

 

[dolphin]

unqualified crew at sea

just read the report and what i can comment is: good weather and visibility, moon, ships on close distance of 6 miles, observation on the radar and not visually, determination after only 1 min that there is not risk of collision - the skipper was not aware of the situation, why, i dont know but presume was sleeping!
for 1 min the person can not evaluate the situation on the radar and not to see a vessel of 68000 DWT is hardly to believe once you know where to look !

ok, i can not blame the young skipper for this (radar interpretation) as many officers on board of the vessel also do not understand the relative motion, when they have look at the radar!

what about the officer of watch - sorry guys, beware of incompetent crew on board the vessels !
observing the green light at a distance of 6 mile and not evaluate: course, speed, collision possibilities and etc !!!
if you have a target with a speed of 5-7 kn, what will be your first idea for the object - small boat (sailing yacht or fisherman) ! in good visibility as the report said, the boat will be very well detected if use binocular!
so in brief - the officer of watch can easily spot the yacht and take action for avoiding the collision!

wish the young lady a success in her saling round the world but consider this as a very risky attempt and can not understand the parents at all !

with best regards



www.neatcss.com

 

[Ubergeekian]

alternatively you could stay home and get a nice job in an office, get up the duff, wait for death

Have a google for "false dichotomy". That said, I wonder how long Miss Watson would last trying to get to work in an office? "'She saw the bus six stops down the street but stepped out right in front of the one ten feet away' said witnesses".

 

[Roberto]

Tis starting to interest me this now. Next time i'm on a boat with a radar I'm going to practice making huge close targets disappear, just to see if it would be easy to do by accident.

I once went through a ship anchorage with three four ships, visibility was not good and I had the radar on: at about 2-2.5 miles the echoes began to stretch (like 2-3cm instead of 5mm), then a big secondary false echo appeared at the stern, then at 1-1.5 mile they showed like I'd been sailing inside a volcano crater, a 1-2cm thick circular echo all around, the kind of thing you are very pleased to see when in the middle of a few ships and are not sure if they are moving or not.

I tried to reduce the gain but if I wanted to have an understandable size echo of one ship I had to turn it so low (like 5-10 on a scale to 100) that all other ships disappeared from the radar, IMHO not the kind of thing one would do by accident as it's clear that one is wiping out everything from the screen, with the same effect as basically turning off the radar

 

[Woodlouse]

I once went through a ship anchorage with three four ships, visibility was not good and I had the radar on: at about 2-2.5 miles the echoes began to stretch (like 2-3cm instead of 5mm), then a big secondary false echo appeared at the stern, then at 1-1.5 mile they showed like I'd been sailing inside a volcano crater, a 1-2cm thick circular echo all around, the kind of thing you are very pleased to see when in the middle of a few ships and are not sure if they are moving or not.

I tried to reduce the gain but if I wanted to have an understandable size echo of one ship I had to turn it so low (like 5-10 on a scale to 100) that all other ships disappeared from the radar, IMHO not the kind of thing one would do by accident as it's clear that one is wiping out everything from the screen, with the same effect as basically turning off the radar

Exactly what my experience would lead me to expect. On almost all but the most f***ked up settings a ship at one mile distant is impossible to miss on radar.

 

[PilotWolf]

This is all covered in the MAIB report. It is common ground that PoB had a close encounter with a sailing vessel and that they assumed that the vessel was okay but did not check.

I am fully aware of the MAIB report however the poster said RAN DOWN he did not say had close encounter - quite a difference!

PW.

 

[bedouin]

I am fully aware of the MAIB report however the poster said RAN DOWN he did not say had close encounter - quite a difference!

Whether or not the PoB ran down the Ouzo is not established fact, although MAIB firmly believe that they did. Note that I don't think the acquittal of the OOW adds much to the debate.

What PoB themselves admitting was having a very close encounter with a small sailing vessel AND NOT CHECKING that everything was okay. Had they stopped and checked we would have known for sure whether or not they hit Ouzo.

Given everything we now know I am almost certain that that was the Ouzo and that it was fatally damaged somehow by the incident - had the PoB stopped to investigate then three lives may well have been saved.

 

[st599]

Perhaps a bit off topic, but reading the thread I was wondering: does having her radar on make her more visible to the ship's radar? Or is it only the reflector that she has on board that reflects the ship's radar signal?

Anything metallic will reflect the signal, it's a question of reflecting it back in the direction of origin - i.e. retro-reflecting.

The RADAR being on would only help if the antenna were exactly correctly aligned, the frequencies were exactly the same, and the transmit occurred at the right instance in time - and even then it would look like interference rather than a "plot"

 

[Mandarin331]

In other words, a supposedly professional officer saw a vessel that he should have expected to give way to, at a range of four miles. He watched it, closing on a steady bearing, for more than twenty minutes ... but still failed to give way. Then, only two minutes before the collision, he made a minimal alteration of course across the bow of the other vessel. And at half a minute before the collision, the only effect of his "hard-to-starboard" would be to swinging his stern to port -- sideswiping the yacht.

I can't help wondering why he altered course to starboard, surely this would just bring them onto a collision course whereas an alteration to port would have brought the ship safely astern of the yacht.

 

[PilotWolf]

Whether or not the PoB ran down the Ouzo is not established fact, although MAIB firmly believe that they did. Note that I don't think the acquittal of the OOW adds much to the debate.

What PoB themselves admitting was having a very close encounter with a small sailing vessel AND NOT CHECKING that everything was okay. Had they stopped and checked we would have known for sure whether or not they hit Ouzo.

Given everything we now know I am almost certain that that was the Ouzo and that it was fatally damaged somehow by the incident - had the PoB stopped to investigate then three lives may well have been saved.

Must be wonderful to have your 7th sense - strange you weren't called as a witness to ensure that the OOW was convicted of murder. Must be great to have never made a mistake or had an after thought about the way you would have dealt with a situation.

Strange that even with the MAIB so called evidence the OOW was STILL acquitted...

And, the fact that IF and it is a very big IF the POB was involved, that the Ouzo crew failed to see a 38000 ton ferry lit up like Blackpool sea front says little for their part in collision avoidance or their ability to keep a good look out.

But of course I forgot yachties are always right and never make a mistake do they?

PW

 

[Ludd]

radar watch

Crossing Biscay last year,I was on a converging course with a container ship(no danger of conflict). At 4 miles I called him (by line name)
XXX THIS IS SY YYY 4MILES OFF YOUR STBD BOW.

YYY,I think you make mistake,there are no vessels within 9miles of my position

xxx Do you have a sister ship in the bay at this time?
yyy we have no other ship of this line in the bay.

xxx Pls humour me ,skipper,by looking out of your stbd bridge wing.

YYY Ah yes I can see you now--

xxx thankyou, sir--have a good watch!



Can only assume clutter turned down or radar off.No danger but worrying all the same!

 

[bedouin]

Strange that even with the MAIB so called evidence the OOW was STILL acquitted...

Strange that someone as all-knowing as you has forgotten that the evidence collected as part of an MAIB enquiry cannot be used in any form of proceedings or court cases arising out of the accident.

Anyone who reads the MAIB report (which you clearly haven't) can have little doubt that the Ouzo had a close encounter with PoB.

However even had the MAIB evidence been available to the court it still might not have been enough to convict "beyond reasonable doubt" as IMHO without finding the wreck it would be very hard to achieve the level of proof required in a criminal case.