Single handed look out? Collision in transat

[Neil_Y]

It was going to happen, good to see no body was hurt.
Sorel had what they termed ‘a serious collision with a cargo ship’ 90 miles off Penmarc’h, on the west coast of Brittany. The incident occurred in daylight, and the skipper informed the race organisation at 0959BST.
Read more at http://www.yachtingworld.com/news/s...ion-transat-bakerly-71374#gw5zfwBHY2fJr9Wm.99

http://www.yachtingworld.com/news/solo-skipper-nurses-damage-serious-collision-transat-bakerly-71374

 

[flaming]

If his AIS, and the AIS of the ship was working, then this throws up all sorts of questions.

 

[Neil_Y]

Especially with drone vessels now getting quite big and quite fast. Several boats had just tacked if you look at the tracker, so you had fast yachts changing course but the ship should have been on a fixed course this far off the coast and corners.

Worst time for tiredness though as they won't have got much sleep last night crossing a busy area for shipping.

 

[Neil_Y]

Meanwhile Sodebo is just passing Finistere only 24 hours out from Plymouth!

 

[Foolish Muse]

Sorel said he was keeping watch as VandB sailed under spinnaker but he did not see the cargo ship.

He was keeping watch but did not see the cargo ship??? And it was daylight???
On the other hand, he was flying his huge, colourful spinnaker and the ship didn't see him??? And it was daylight???
I think we need to re-think the definition of keeping watch.

 

[flaming]

He was keeping watch but did not see the cargo ship??? And it was daylight???
On the other hand, he was flying his huge, colourful spinnaker and the ship didn't see him??? And it was daylight???
I think we need to re-think the definition of keeping watch.

I think they both have some very serious questions to answer. Arguably the ship more so.

 

[Neil_Y]

Yep, at the speeds they can travel the scenery will change quite rapidly, in the area where it happened it's not that busy but looking at AIS charts there is still one ship every 20Km heading NE for the channel at speeds up to 18knts.

If you look at the AIS chart you can see that Macif identifies itself as a solo sailor, but Sodebo just says Sodebo4 might be useful if you're on a ship to know who might not be keeping a good lookout or could be busy. Both are travelling at 30 knts +

 

[dunedin]

And this is not a unique occurrence - didn't a solo multihull crash into a coaster on a recent previous race.

 

[lw395]

Nobody hurt.
Rig still standing.
Yacht heading back without assistance.

Unfortunate that his race is over, but it's not exactly rally cars running over spectators is it?

 

[Birdseye]

Nobody hurt.
Rig still standing.
Yacht heading back without assistance.

Unfortunate that his race is over, but it's not exactly rally cars running over spectators is it?

No. Its much slower and more easily avoided. Less excuse.

 

[Neil_Y]

Nobody hurt.
Rig still standing.
Yacht heading back without assistance.

Unfortunate that his race is over, but it's not exactly rally cars running over spectators is it?

The point is this is in many ways a test of technology that might be employed in drone vessels, with signalling of position and awareness of the surroundings, clearly you can not keep a full time watch single handed for days at a time, so I'm interested in coping strategies and the use of technology to mitigate risk. It is a tragedy for technology which is capable of giving positions and speeds and also reading positions of other vessels.

 

[Foolish Muse]

I'm interested in coping strategies and the use of technology to mitigate risk.

Neil, believe it or not, the main "coping strategy" is just plain luck. The ocean is a REALLY big place and other ships only take up a tiny, itsy-bitsy, minuscule portion of that really big place. The odds of hitting a a ship are unbelievably small. I'm sure you have better odds of getting run over while walking on the sidewalk in any city.

Yes, we have added active and passive radar reflectors, AIS and radar with all kinds of alarms, and these do help. And we really do rely on the ship keeping a half decent watch even though we know it often doesn't happen. But having sailed singlehanded offshore many times, I can tell you that once we are out of the main channels and into the open ocean, it is very reasonable that we just rely on the fact that the ocean is really big. Believe it or not, I've had a closer encounter with a whale than I have with a ship.

Note that I'm talking about "coping strategy". I.e., how you can cope emotionally. If you can't get into this mode, and if you are only relying on technology then you will never feel comfortable singlehanding. When you look at all of the instances that have occurred, the sailor floated away from every one that we know of. Hitting a ship just isn't that bad.

 

[DFL1010]

The main problem here is that long-distance singlehanding is breaking the law. Rule 5 is quite clear: at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing and by all available methods appropriate ...

You obviously cannot maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing whilst sleeping, or down below at the routing laptop, or cooking, or whatever. Nor can you substitute sight and hearing for active radar scanners, or AIS alarms, or whatever.


I think the greater responsibility here lies with the yacht skipper. The ship would have been maintaining course and speed, whereas the yacht will have been altering both whilst surfing. The yacht was absolutely the more manoeuvrable here and it would have been trivial for it to have kept clear. The other problem is what both would consider a safe passing distance. Ships try not to get too close to each other, and coastal traffic tends to consider 1nm 'too close'. Mid-ocean, 5+nm is just unnecessary. For a yacht, not so much.

So, absolutely the yacht has broken R5 and R2. The ship has obviously broken rules too (without knowing exactly the situation, it's impossible to say exactly which). It'd be interesting to hear of flag states' reactions here.

 

[Woodlouse]

So, absolutely the yacht has broken R5 and R2. The ship has obviously broken rules too (without knowing exactly the situation, it's impossible to say exactly which). It'd be interesting to hear of flag states' reactions here.

The ship was also failing to maintain a proper look out and if they did see the other boat then they failed to give way to the stand on vessel.

There are no winners with Colregs and the only thing the flag state can do is review the watch keeping practices on their ships since in this instance they weren't up to snuff.

 

[DFL1010]

Errr, yes.

It'd be interesting to see how well the yacht was maintaining course and speed (I suspect not so much).

I really do thing it's time to change the whole power gives way to sail thing, as it is no longer supported by the general assumption of how the rules work

 

[Woodlouse]

Errr, yes.

It'd be interesting to see how well the yacht was maintaining course and speed (I suspect not so much).

I really do thing it's time to change the whole power gives way to sail thing, as it is no longer supported by the general assumption of how the rules work

I imagine the yachts average course and speed was more than sufficient to assess whether a risk of collision existed.

As for changing the rules, the standard of watch keeping on some commercial vessels is dubious enough without giving them the right of way to boot.

 

[Ceirwan]

Sorel said he was keeping watch as VandB sailed under spinnaker but he did not see the cargo ship.

Evidently not keeping that good a watch if he didn't spot a cargo ship in plain day light.
The ship is equally at fault, the yacht had AIS and a big bright spinnaker on, plus it was the stand on vessel.

As someone said above, no winners in the col regs, both at fault.

I think the greater responsibility here lies with the yacht skipper. The ship would have been maintaining course and speed, whereas the yacht will have been altering both whilst surfing. The yacht was absolutely the more manoeuvrable here and it would have been trivial for it to have kept clear.

The reason we have clearly defined responsibilities in the RoR is so that we always know what sort of action to expect. Even if the Yacht is more maneuverable than a ship we can't have people making their own decisions on who should be the stand on vessel on the spot.

 

[Neil_Y]

Neil, believe it or not, the main "coping strategy" is just plain luck. The ocean is a REALLY big place and other ships only take up a tiny, itsy-bitsy, minuscule portion of that really big place. The odds of hitting a a ship are unbelievably small. I'm sure you have better odds of getting run over while walking on the sidewalk in any city.

I'm aware it's fairly empty out there having sailed across the Atlantic a few times two handed and fully crewed on a race boat, but I'm interested as these guys are now making use of state of the art equipment. That area is pretty busy with shipping and he would have seen that on AIS so chances of a meeting were fairly high I would think, there's a clear lane of traffic coming from the corner of Spain to entering the channel.

I'm not worried about hitting ships or being hit, and have hove to twice in Biscay and once West of Azores and had a good nights sleep, but there are areas (and this is one) where you keep a better look out.

Funny thing is despite mid Atlantic being pretty much empty, twice I've had a fast ship appear directly behind, they both saw us and took avoiding action, we had a chat on the radio and they confirmed they'd had us on the radar for a while and took action so they didn't get too close. So for 19 days nothing and then for an hour we were very close to a big ship. Chances of hitting us very very small but if they had it would have spoilt a nice trip.

 

[Bajansailor]

Funny thing is despite mid Atlantic being pretty much empty, twice I've had a fast ship appear directly behind, they both saw us and took avoiding action, we had a chat on the radio and they confirmed they'd had us on the radar for a while and took action so they didn't get too close. So for 19 days nothing and then for an hour we were very close to a big ship. Chances of hitting us very very small but if they had it would have spoilt a nice trip.

Sometimes the Atlantic can seem to be a very small place indeed.
We were hove to in a gale 20 years ago and 20 miles outside the shipping lanes off Cape Finisterre and we were nearly run down by a very large Chinese bulk carrier - their bow wave literally pushed us to one side.
And some years ago a singlehanded pal of mine was crossing from the Cape Verdes to here (Barbados) - it had just got dark, he was down below talking on the ham radio when he crashed broadside into a large bulk carrier. No chance of him tee-boning it though, he came off much worser. he had looked around earlier and not seen anything - he must have missed this one (in the days pre AIS). He called them up on the VHF and they turned around and came back and picked him, as his boat was sinking - excellent seamanship to position a laden bulk carrier next to the yacht in about 25 knots of tradewinds at night.

I remember one time we were sailing north in the Caribbean, about 20 miles west of the islands - I was on watch and was called below for supper, just before sunset. Had a look around, nothing in sight, the Aries was steering happily, so I went below and scoffed a plate of food, went on deck again about 15 - 20 mins later and saw a cargo ship just crossing our stern.......

The map on www.marinetraffic.com seems to have been recently updated so that it shows all the vessels out in Mid-Atlantic as well, although it doesn't give their details (you need to pay a subscription to access this info). But this does show how the Atlantic is fairly congested relatively.

 

[Foolish Muse]

For those who want to research this issue further, the Australian Transportation Board wrote a report on a collision between a ship and 2-handed yacht during daylight in 2014. You can find it here:
http://atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2014/mair/311-mo-2014-006/
I suggest that you at least read the first page that summarizes the conclusions. Or you can download the entire report as I did for details.

And of course you can also read the report about the singlehanded collision between Ella's Pink Lady and a ship:
http://atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2009/mair/268-mo-2009-008/