WA State Ferry hits sailboat

A Bad Day in the office. Sure leaves a lot of questions in one's mind.
 
What questions?

Going by overtaking procedures as outlined in the Nav Regs the fault seems pretty clear to me.

Bob
 
I agree. I was refering to the gross lack of competence displayed.
 
You think captains of commercial boats know what they are doing, but that's obviously not always the case.

I hope the people at least get their boat and belongings replaced.
 
It "appears" the captain did know what she was doing, but the "mate" did not. Still, it shouldn't have happened.

The overtaking rule might not apply in that case as there were more than two vessels involved; the ferry, the sailboat, another sailboat, and the tug. IMO it falls under special circumstances.

Also the sailboat probably should NOT have been there. 9B.

It's not cut-and-dried, but the lawyers will figure it out.
 
The Ferries have been doing the same routs for nearly 100 years.
The Sail boat was working on Stupid at the helm if he thought he was going to force the Power boat to yield to the Sail boat. It says that in the Books, but the Commercial boat always gets the right of way.
I think that's been contested in Puget Sound more than once, and the Sail Boat lost every time.

The Tug boat helmsman was probably in a state of shock, seeing a collision coming up, but still thinking of his responsibility to the Ferry schedule ET AL.
 
It's a complicated piece of water. Always more than a few boats in the vicinity. I don't think it would be 9b. Where the tug and ferry would have met would be more like 9b, but in the location where they were they had plenty of room to anticipate everything around them.

This seems to me of the classic case of recognizing one danger at the expense and tunnel vision of everything else.
 
I don't get it... The article says the ferry hit a sailing vessel Asya yet the diagram show a M /Y Asya and another sailing vessel. Which one is it?

I strongly disagree about "stupid" being at the helm of the sailing vessel that was hit he was at the helm of the ferry... When you are doing 5 kts and you have a ferry coming on your stern at 4 times that speed there isn't much you can do...remember that as sand on you are required to maintain course and speed unless you have to take evasive action. In this case with the ferry turning to stbd instead of port, the sailboat couldn't turn to stbd without making things worst

If anyone knows anything in the ROR about ferry schedule giving them any kind of righs, please let me know

Yes i know that common sense means stay out of the way but if the ferry turns the wrong way, doesn't sound signals and makes no contact by VHF, there is nothing you can do
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

If anyone knows anything in the ROR about ferry schedule giving them any kind of righs, please let me know

Yes i know that common sense means stay out of the way but if the ferry turns the wrong way, doesn't sound signals and makes no contact by VHF, there is nothing you can do

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+1

To me the ROR clearly places the burden of responsibility on the overtaking vessel. All the Ferry had to do was throttle back and match the speed of the sail boat until the situation cleared allowing a safe overtaking.

Bob
 
Way too many ferries operate under the "me myself and I" rule in complete disregard of others. For instance I have crossed fast ferries around cape cod running 20kts in 1/4 mile vis

Plain stupid
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

Way too many ferries operate under the "me myself and I" rule in complete disregard of others. For instance I have crossed fast ferries around cape cod running 20kts in 1/4 mile vis

Plain stupid

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20 kts in 1/4nm vis? I wonder what they slowed down for. Those guys slowed for nothing. One thing I do have to concede, is those guys knew what they were doing with a RADAR set. Call them to make passing arrangements in no vis, and they'd rattle off every moving target that may be of concern for the both of you.

Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of times I was running faster than that in less vis than that in those waters, but it was for a damned good reason, and it certainly wasn't a boat full of passengers.
 
I'm sure they'll find plenty of blame to go around.

Looking at the chart, the channel looks like it's about a mile wide in the vicinity of the collision which isn't exactly "narrow", but the ferry was approaching a much tighter area and also had a tug and a second sailboat to deal with. It MIGHT have made more sense to haul around to starboard of the sailboat where there APPEARS to be plenty of room. But it was a Saturday and there may have been a lot of other small vessels out there. However by the time the ferry got around to doing anything, it was too late, anyway; you can't accomplish much in four seconds with a large vessel.

But to be honest I wasn't there, I'm not familiar with the area, and the news article really doesn't give much information, so this is all speculation on my part.

http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18421.shtml
 
quote:
Originally posted by November Charlie

quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

Way too many ferries operate under the "me myself and I" rule in complete disregard of others. For instance I have crossed fast ferries around cape cod running 20kts in 1/4 mile vis

Plain stupid

Click to expand...


20 kts in 1/4nm vis? I wonder what they slowed down for. Those guys slowed for nothing. One thing I do have to concede, is those guys knew what they were doing with a RADAR set. Call them to make passing arrangements in no vis, and they'd rattle off every moving target that may be of concern for the both of you.

Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of times I was running faster than that in less vis than that in those waters, but it was for a damned good reason, and it certainly wasn't a boat full of passengers.

Click to expand...


Coming into nantucket is pretty straightforward, litterally, but on the hyanis side y have a couple of turns and no matter how good you are with radar, turns come up pretty quickly.
 
quote:
Originally posted by L. Keith

You can find the actual report with all attachments here. Be sure and scroll down to 2013 under vessel incident investigations

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/accountability/

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Wow. Just read through the attachments. Where the hell did this Second Mate get her ticket printed? A few things you should learn by that point in your career:

-Captains don't make suggestions. 'If you think it's necessary' means 'do now'.

-Helm orders are non-negotiable.

-Left is left, right is right.

-Repeat back ALL orders.

-"Oh, you mean my other left" - that should have been grounds for justifiable homicide right there.

-When the bells ring or the pipe made for 'away the rescue boat', you don't stand there wondering what to do.

I am honestly at a loss as to where and how she got a ticket for that capacity pushing that tonnage.
 
Very interesting, L Keith, and thank you. I do know that when traveling at those speeds in a large vessel in close quarters, "situations" can come up in a hurry, and can get you into trouble if you're not really on top of them. This seems to me to be the biggest part of the problem. I'm not sure that the rudder being to starboard for 4 seconds had that much effect, but the fact that the vessels were ALREADY too close and the evasive maneuver started too late probably did. I do know that any time you choose to go BETWEEN two vessels, sometimes the situation can get too close for comfort (safety), and there is no "out". IMO it's generally better to go around them both (there being sufficient sea room) as one can always haul over a little more.

I think the discussion of "situational awareness" was right on target.
 
quote:
Originally posted by stmbtwle

Very interesting, L Keith, and thank you. I do know that when traveling at those speeds in a large vessel in close quarters, "situations" can come up in a hurry, and can get you into trouble if you're not really on top of them. This seems to me to be the biggest part of the problem. I'm not sure that the rudder being to starboard for 4 seconds had that much effect, but the fact that the vessels were ALREADY too close and the evasive maneuver started too late probably did. I do know that any time you choose to go BETWEEN two vessels, sometimes the situation can get too close for comfort (safety), and there is no "out". IMO it's generally better to go around them both (there being sufficient sea room) as one can always haul over a little more.

I think the discussion of "situational awareness" was right on target.

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One thing to keep in mind about that 4 seconds is it cost at least 12 seconds - 4 with the rudder on the wrong angle, at least 4 to counteract, and at least 4 seconds it should have been at the proper angle.

No doubt situational awareness and ORM/CRM played a role - but in what mishap does it not?
 
Even 12 seconds SHOULDN'T have mattered... She SHOULD have taken evasive action a minute or more before the collision. It appears to me the captain let the situation get away from her, and didn't realize it until too late. Whether those 12 seconds would have mattered is academic, she was TOO DAMN CLOSE!

Even then, 5 (or more) blasts on the whistle could have alerted the yacht, and the yacht could maneuver a hell of a lot quicker than the ferry. I suspect the first inkling the captain of the yacht had that the ferry was even around was "crunch!".

Yep, it boils down to "situational awareness", at least. The fact that the bridge crew was in "training mode" didn't help.
 
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