Tall ship Astrid lost in Oysterhaven Cork today

[westernman]

I can't see why vessels whose sailing efficiency is so lousy that they can't make basic progress to windward in moderate conditions, aren't universally regarded as motor-driven...

...the idea that in a tight spot on a lee shore, she might sail her way out of trouble caused by contaminated fuel, is sheerest wishful thinking.

That was the problem. The capitain regarded her as motor driven on that passage plan.

The motor failed (due to an earlier misjudgement in may be thinking that this was a sailing ship and she did not need a 100% reliable engine).

Astrid in common with most square rigged vessels from the age of sail driven cargo and passenger ships could not make progress to windward under sail except in a very specific set of advantageous circumstances. (calm seas with just the right amount of wind - not too little, not too much).

In the age of sail, no one willingly put a sail driven vessel close to a lee shore.

 

[Vega1447]

That was the problem. The capitain regarded her as motor driven on that passage plan.

The motor failed (due to an earlier misjudgement in may be thinking that this was a sailing ship and she did not need a 100% reliable engine).

Astrid in common with most square rigged vessels from the age of sail driven cargo and passenger ships could not make progress to windward under sail except in a very specific set of advantageous circumstances. (calm seas with just the right amount of wind - not too little, not too much).

In the age of sail, no one willingly put a sail driven vessel close to a lee shore.

The skipper seems to have put the ship close inshore so that the "parade of sail" could be seen by spectators on shore.

The MCIB report didn't pursue this angle.

 

[Greenheart]

That was the problem. The captain regarded her as motor driven...due to an earlier misjudgement in thinking that this was a sailing ship and she did not need a 100% reliable engine.

So...the captain was free day-to-day to believe that whichever of his vessel's means of propulsion was least effective or reliable, was regarded as its auxiliary/secondary power?

...so, however the ship met its end, it was due to the shortcomings of the vessel, rather than its fool of a master?

Just as with the Maria Assumpta twenty years ago, Astrid seems to have been a creaky old vessel in need of particularly tender care by her master...

...but just as in the tragic Maria Assumpta case, Astrid was treated in a cavalier fashion which as time passed, could scarcely have avoided her loss.

 

[RichardS]

I don't really understand why posters keep stating that the Skipper was not qualified. I quoted from the report in #98.

"The Master’s Certificate of Competency expired on the 5th June 2013. The expired certificate was for the requirements of Regulation II/3, which is of a
lesser standard than required by II/2."

Apparently, he was qualified to level II/3 rather than to the level of II/2 (whatever that means) which was required by the ships registration. You could say that he was not sufficiently qualified but he was qualified.

His certification had lapsed a little earlier but, in practical terms, my view is that is a technicality.

Captain Schettino was, of course, fully qualified and in date. :ambivalence:

Richard

 

[dunedin]

There is a lot of difference between sailing your own boat for your own pleasure at your own risk, with or without competence or qualification and being placed in charge of a passenger carrying vessel with paying customers. For someone in that position, there is a reasonable expectation that there is no anarchy involved and that the vessel is manned by properly trained and qualified people. This quite clearly wasn't the case with Astrid.

That is the fundamental point. I am happy to go without paper qualifications on my own boat, and not. To fussed about the life raft being a bit past service dates on my own boat.

But a sail training and/or passenger taking vessel is an entirely different matter altogether. Not only does the ship and crew need to be 100% shipshape & competent, but as an enterprise taking other people's children and loved ones on board they need to be scrupulous about procedure and process.
Clearly none of this was met here which is very concerning

 

[bitbaltic]

I can't see why vessels whose sailing efficiency is so lousy that they can't make basic progress to windward in moderate conditions, aren't universally regarded as motor-driven...

...the idea that in a tight spot on a lee shore, she might sail her way out of trouble caused by contaminated fuel, is sheerest wishful thinking.

+1 well said. And the overarching point is, whatever the regulations say, this is an opinion the skipper should have formed for himself and done so when taking the boat on.

Everyone knows that having to try and sail off a lee shore in a strong wind or big sea is a classical trap for square riggers. Thus when taking the boat on, long before the incident in Cork, the skipper should have formed a view on the risk such courses present in such conditions, and what he will do to mitigate them.

The best mitigation (incidentally available on the day) is not to do it. If you are going to accept the risk of doing it, however, motor sailing becomes the mitigation. Now, that means considering and mitigating the next risk, which is that engines can and do fail. How it might fail (in this case, contaminated fuel) isn't relevant to a skippers' advance plan of what to do about it. Now I think we would all agree that the best mitigation now becomes dropping your anchors (which, although the MCIB says different, the skipper says could run without power). So the result is your boat at anchor on a lee shore with a failed engine. Not attractive because now the only way out by your own endeavor is to be sure you can fix the engine yourself. You can never be sure of that because engine failures can sometimes be total seizures or other complete write-off situations. So having got to the endgame of this way of thinking, most/all skippers offered command of a boat like Astrid would fall back to the better mitigation of not being there, in such conditions, in the first place.

All this should go through the head of a competent, thoughtful skipper - that is, an individual both with experience and a capacity for strategic thinking whatever certificates he does or does not have- on being offered the job, at the latest on having a look around the boat. Astrid should simply never have been in the situation.

That the skipper's strategic thinking was exceptionally poor is demonstrated in the fact that his mitigation for engine failure was to ask neighboring boats to help. This is no plan at all because other people may not be there, or (as they were in point of fact) unwilling or unable to make a difference. Effectively, he did not have a plan for the situation he found himself in, and when things started to go wrong, he was too close to shore to come up with one. Astrid was lost entirely in consequence of that.

Cheers

 

[Scillyboy]

If there are regulations for competence and equipment suitability and serviceability in a commercial industry which has reponsibility for the safety of its clients/customers, it seems quite likely that any organisation which is unable to keep the regulatory and licencing 'paperwork' in order may well be unable to adhere to the required operational standards and keep the required equipment in order either. In my other life in civil aviation, the adherence to operational, engineering and licencing standards, and the paperwork to ensure that said standards were maintained, was an issue of the utmost priority.

 

[duncan99210]

I don't really understand why posters keep stating that the Skipper was not qualified. I quoted from the report in #98.

"The Master’s Certificate of Competency expired on the 5th June 2013. The expired certificate was for the requirements of Regulation II/3, which is of a
lesser standard than required by II/2."

Apparently, he was qualified to level II/3 rather than to the level of II/2 (whatever that means) which was required by the ships registration. You could say that he was not sufficiently qualified but he was qualified.

His certification had lapsed a little earlier but, in practical terms, my view is that is a technicality.

Captain Schettino was, of course, fully qualified and in date. :ambivalence:

Richard

The problem wasn't that his ticket had expired but that he didn't have the requisite qualification to command the vessel. His ticket qualified him as an assistant only, not as a vessel master. He therefore lacked the training in decision making, especially in relation to managing incidents and passage planning, as is evidenced by his actions in the day. I don't understand why any one is arguing the toss about this: you wouldn't want an airline pilot who didn't hold the correct ticket for the plane he was flying would you? Doesn't the same test apply for a ship?

 

[westernman]

One of the distinctions often made is that this was not a passenger ship carrying passengers but a sail training vessel carrying trainee crew.

As I understand it, legally and from the qualifications required of the "permanent" crew this makes a big difference.

I think it is very expensive, but not impossible (see Sea Cloud Sea Cloud) to get a ship of this kind and size up to required standard, and to be able to crew it with crew suitably qualified for carrying passengers. The Sail Training status AFAIK is more lenient.

For example, I think generally Stadamsterdam Stadamsterdam carries trainee crew rather than passengers, although sometimes it does carry passengers on cruises. I think there is a difference in manning requirements.

Anybody here know the details?

 

[Triassic]

I think people are reading far more into this than they really need to. This ship was lost because the skipper made a poor decision and put his vessel in such a circumstance that if something were to go wrong he would be in trouble, and it did.

The "cause" of this incident wasn't a lack of qualification or experience. Many a vessel commanded by well qualified and experienced officers have been lost at sea due to errors of judgement. I accept that in order to have gained the necessary "qualification" it may have required the skipper to have sat additional exams or demonstrated a level of expertise that he failed to evidence on the day of this incident, but simple possession of that qualification is not a bar to him making a subsequent mistake.

There are many lessons to be learnt from this incident, the vast majority for the sail training community around their professionalism with regard to administration.

There is only one lesson for the majority of us normal sailors, never underestimate the dangers of a lee shore.

 

[Vega1447]

I think people are reading far more into this than they really need to. This ship was lost because the skipper made a poor decision and put his vessel in such a circumstance that if something were to go wrong he would be in trouble, and it did.

The "cause" of this incident wasn't a lack of qualification or experience. Many a vessel commanded by well qualified and experienced officers have been lost at sea due to errors of judgement. I accept that in order to have gained the necessary "qualification" it may have required the skipper to have sat additional exams or demonstrated a level of expertise that he failed to evidence on the day of this incident, but simple possession of that qualification is not a bar to him making a subsequent mistake.

There are many lessons to be learnt from this incident, the vast majority for the sail training community around their professionalism with regard to administration.

There is only one lesson for the majority of us normal sailors, never underestimate the dangers of a lee shore.

+N.

(What he said.)