I believe that Fubaya’s is the second one as seen on the other link. Whichever double-reversal was immediately involved in the collision, there’s another one that needs explaining as well.
I wonder if the merchant ship was running early and was told by the harbormaster (or whoever) to stand by offshore for a bit to delay his arrival for awhile. IOW, do the ship equivalent of an aerial holding pattern: drive in circles to burn time without covering net distance.
I can imagine a number of ways for the merchantman to decide to reverse course for holding pattern purposes without fully clearing the area they’re turning into. Oops; that’s mistake #1. Which would sure be a surprise for anyone else nearby. Oops; mistake #2.
Maneuvering in tight quarters looking only at AIS it would be easy to create a risk to somebody running without AIS. OTOH, running without AIS in crowded waters is creating a risk for everyone around you.
The only way to ensure that no possible actions or failures of another ship result in a collision is to sink all other ships within range, but that approach has its own drawbacks. The best that a ship can do is follow the rules of the road (the Collision Regulations http://www.jag.navy.mil/distrib/instructions/COLREG-1972.pdf
), and those rules work best if both ships obey the rules and both ships assume that the other ship will obey the rules. Ya gotta trust your dance partner, particularly if she weighs tens of thousands of of tons.
Let’s think through a hypothetical – both ships heading directly at each other (and note that I am not suggesting that this was the situation between the destroyer and the freighter). Imagine you are a Doper commanding a freighter and there is another Doper commanding another freighter heading directly towards you in the middle of a big, empty ocean, and remember that neither of your freighters can stop suddenly or turn quickly. By the time your notice each other, it’s too late to stop, and even if it were possible for you to stop, there’s no telling if the other Doper will stop, so you must take evasive action. Both continuing straight (playing chicken), or both turning into the into the same direction (both heading to the same “safe” place), will result in a collision.
The only viable option is for each one to turn in the opposite direction from which the other will turn. If one turns its right and the other also turns right then both will be heading in different directions and pass by each other rather than collide, and if one turns left and the other also turns left then both will be heading in different directions and pass each other rather than collide. If both turn right or if both turn left, then they will be bumping uglies.
But how does each Doper know whether to turn right or turn left? Remember, every second counts, so you must not delay. Also remember that if the Doper on the bridge of the oncoming vessel is drunk, or asleep, or masturbating in his bunk, or if there is a mechanical or navigation problem that prevents him from turning or even knowing that you are about to run into each other, then you must turn one way or the other even if he is not turning yet. It’s decision time now – delay will kill you: do you turn right or do you turn left? If you make the wrong decision and begin your turn in the wrong direction at about the same time he begins his turn in the correct direction, then you will be the one who screwed the pooch.
The ColRegs have the answer. Among other things, they will tell you which direction to turn in which circumstances, but for the ColRegs to have the greatest chance of success, both of you are required to follow the rules. If one ship fails to follow the applicable rule, it greatly increases the risk of collision. So are you going to assume that the Doper on the bridge of the other ship is a professional who will follow the rule, just as you are a professional who will follow the rule, or are you going to assume that your fellow professional is a special snowflake contrarian who does not believe that he must follow the rule? Note that if you assume that he is a special snowflake contrarian and as a result you take an action that is contrary to the rule to save your self from what you imagine his breaking of the rule would result in, then you are a special snowflake contrarian who does not believe that you must follow the rule. When you break the rule, may your god or pasta of your choice help you if it turns out that your fellow doper really was a professional abiding by the rules of the road, for you will have been the one who caused the crash.
Quite simply, the best way to avoid a collision is for both Dopers to assume that the other Doper knows the rules and will apply the rules, rather than throw into the ocean the legally binding Collision Regulations that were designed specifically to help ships avoid collisions.
BTW, for potential head-on collisions, the rule is Rule 14. I have no idea if this rule applied to the circumstances in the collision between the destroyer and the freighter, but one of the ColReg rules would have applied, leaving the big question that cost seven people their lives – why was the applicable rule not followed?
Depends on the ship, but for recent big ones, yes, they are required to use voyage data recorders that include bridge audio as well a lot of data concerning the ship’s route and functioning. SOLAS Convention chapter V section 20 covers it: http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/facilitation/documents/solas%20v%20on%20safety%20of%20navigation.pdf
but warships, naval auxiliary ships and not-for-profit government ships are exempted (section 1). (I have no idea what the USA Navy does, but I would assume that they meet or exceed commercial requirements simply because they are one hell of a professional organization that tries to avoid screwups, and tries to learn from screwups.
As I mentioned, the marine trackers don’t show past tracks without a subscription, I grabbed that image when it was fresh (and free). At that time you could see the time, heading and speed at every point on the marine trackers. I’m going by memory but I’m pretty sure 2:30am is where I circled, in the middle of a 15 degree left turn. The more erratic stuff is post-collision. That assumes the 2:20am timeframe is accurate.
Note in this situation the ships were in the middle of the ocean. So the option is to go around them with plenty of margin so even if the opposing ship has a problem either human or mechanical there is plenty of time to react.
Not necessarily. I’m not familiar with the area in which the collision took place, but it’s very common to have established traffic lanes in which vessels (especially large vessels, like merchants and warships) are required to operate when transiting. While there aren’t actual penalties for leaving the traffic scheme other than a bridge-to-bridge call to whomever’s responsible for the scheme (called various things around the world), you don’t expect merchants to do things like that. Additionally, I’d be very surprised if there weren’t multiple other contacts on the outskirts of any established traffic schemes - depending on the area, they are very popular places for small fishermen. 0130/0230 local seems early for heavy fishing traffic, but again, I’m not familiar with the operating patterns in the area.
Driving around, warships are notorious for operating erratically - course and speed changes for training, maximizing CPA (closest point of approach - essentially the minimum distance from the warship to any vessel) are all a huge part of any OOD’s prerogative and usually a requirement placed on him or her by the CO.
Merchants, on the other hand, are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Based on fuel costs and maintenance, they are very, very unlikely to change course or speed unless absolutely required to do so to avoid collision, and in general they are much more comfortable with much closer CPAs than OODs/COs, so they’re more-likely to change course by the absolute minimum required by the situation, no matter what the COLREGS say.
None of this completely-anecdotal experience may apply in this case, and it certainly doesn’t absolve anybody of any responsibility. But to my mind, based on what I’ve seen (none of it in WestPac) and what my friends have seen driving ships in that area, it’d be very easy to be surprised by a merchant who decided/was forced to drive in a way not conforming to normal traffic regulations.
The ships were *not *in “the middle of the ocean”.
They were entering or leaving a large natural inlet on the way to or from docking. IOW in an area a little bigger than the scale of the NY outer harbor area (Raritan Bay) outside the Verrazano Narrows to out beyond Sandy Hook in New Jersey & Breezy Point on Long Island in New York.
Land was within a few miles. Islands were within a couple miles. A dozen boats & ships were milling around coming and going. Yes, even at 2am local. There are various charted paths ships are expected to follow in areas like that. You don’t just maneuver at will.
Given the size and relative unmanueverability of ships, that’s about the same degree of congestion as you or I driving around in a supermarket parking lot on a Saturday morning.
I had thought the 90 degree right from the ACX Crystal (visible in this jpgfrom the BBC. Apologies if it’s already been posted here) was at the time of the collision. The subsequent 180s are it trying to return to the scene to render aid.
It will be interesting to learn how this collision happened.
If a merchant ship is running early they will not circle like a plane. At the time of the collision it looks like the container ship was traveling around 13 knots. That is either a 1/2 ahead bell or a full ahead bell. If the container ship was early it would slow down. Either a slow or dead slow bell. Or keep coming an anchor just outside the dock area. Going in circles burns fuel and in a restricted water area can be dangerous.
Not distance, but speed. I can’t speak for surface ships specifically, but different engine speeds (corresponding to shaft RPM) are called “bells” - for example, you could be answering an ahead-one-third bell (written AA1/3, or “all ahead one third”), which would correspond to a specific SRPM and therefore a rough speed. If you wanted to speed up, you’d put on a higher bell, like AA2/3, or all-ahead-standard (AAI), or higher. If you wanted to slow down, you could answer all stop (AZ), which essentially is taking your foot off the gas and allowing your car to coast down to a stop. If you needed to slow down in a shorter distance/time, you could put on astern propulsion (called a backing bell), which causes the shaft to turn in the opposite direction, slowing your vessel down and eventually causing you to make sternway (motion in the backwards direction, the opposite of headway).
Speculation ahead, because I’m unable to look this up at the moment
I believe the “all” in “all ahead” or “all back” comes from vessels that have multiple screws and can operate them at different speeds, in order to pivot or turn in a tighter radius. It’s not technically applicable to single-screw boats, but…Naval Tradition is written with capital letters for a reason.
I’m also pretty sure that the term “bell” comes from the original engine order telegraph, which was used on the bridge to “ring up a bell” or order the vessel’s engine room to change power production by both a needle pointing to the ordered speed and a specific set of bells to both get attention and correspond to that specific bell.
This endeth the speculation
Modern ships have other tools they can use to change their speed, like adjusting the angle of their screw blades (the blades of the propeller), but I have no experience with those.
good description. My last ship was a T-2 tanker. It was a Turbo Electric steam Ship, the SS Catabwa Ford.
The Bells were as follows
After the bar in open seas Full Ahead was as close to 90 turns as we could get. The bridge could modify this at any time.
Maneuvering the bells were
Full 80 Turns
1/2 40 truns
Slow 20 turns
Dead slow was 5 turns.
As the ship was electric the turns ahead or astern were the same.
If you had a ahead bell and on the EOT the bridge rung up full Astern and banged the handle twice and left it on full astern that was an emergency astern bell. I only received one of those.
Hope this add to the understanding of bells.
But the Catawba Ford is now razor blades.
Isn’t the starboard side damage a clear indication of fault?
Much like a rear end car accident. All the excuses in the world won’t help. You rear end somebody, then it’s your fault. Doesn’t matter if the other guy braked suddenly.
I speak from bitter experience. I stupidly bumped a car in front of me in Feb 2017. I had a excuse but I still got ticketed and my insurance paid the damages.
That came out ofa freighter I was working on. I got the job when a couple of the crew returned from a bar drunk as skunks and tried to climb up the ladder (a fully extended 36 foot extension ladder) to get on board. The body of one of them was found between the ship and the pier. The other one remembered the fellow falling, but instead of raising an alarm, went to his bunk and passed out. Every night I’d clean the cabins of the whichever mates were on watch. One of them had his cabin crammed from floor to ceiling with Playboy and Penthouse magazines, and his mattress had a permanent stain under the sheets. So there you have it. Life on a freighter: dunk, asleep or masturbating.
One thing to note about low speed diesel ships with fixed pitch props, IOW the overwhelming majority of container ships, tankers and bulkers in existence and including ACX Crystal, is they have traditionally had a pretty high minimum engine speed relative to full speed, no real ‘dead slow’ bell. ACX Crystal’s engine, mechanical camshaft type, has a minimum RPM of 20~25% of full rpm. For the latest ‘camshaftless’ electronically controlled engines now gaining favor it’s lower.
Seemed from the public sources the ship was going somewhere around 1/2 speed near the time of the collision. But having a design speed of 23kts, it wouldn’t normally go slower than around 6kts under continuous power, speed being roughly proportional to RPM. And there’s a limit to cutting the engine in and out, to avoid running down the starting compressed air supply faster than the air compressors can make it up. A DDG OTOH since it has controllable pitch propellers can creep at very low speed, as an electric drive or steam turbine (or both, T2) ship can.
The U.S. Navy said the collision happened at about 2:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Friday), while the Japanese Coast Guard said it was 1:30 a.m. local time.
1:30am (16:30 UTC June 16th) means the collision happened when the Crystal was heading east and made that first abrupt 90 degree turn to the right. The Crystal was traveling straight and normal before the collision then bam, 90 degrees to the right (most likely after being hit on the left side), then they slowly got back on course, probably spent a few minutes checking the ship for damage, then did a 180 to go back and see if they could help the Fitz, lingered around a while, then finally went east as they were originally trying to do.
The vessel that has the right away is required to maintain speed and course. The damage looks like more of a glancing blow than a T collision. If the accident happened at the point that the container made a 90 degree turn then there is the possibility that either ship or both ships were at fault.
The damage appears to have happened as the destroyer was passing the container ship. If this was the case then the container ship had the right away and the destroyer was required to safely pass the container ship. It was the responsibility of the destroyer to maintain a safe distance while passing. As two ships are passing in close distance the flowing water will have a pulling force on the ships pulling them closer together. If the officer with the con on the destroyer did not take this into consideration the destroyer is at fault.
But if the container ship changed course or speed as he was being passed then the container ship is at fault. And before the 90 degree turn to the right it looks like the container ship made a course change to the left which would have been towards the destroyers course. Depending on the placement and time of the destroyer at that course change the blame will fall on who ever had the con of the container and what senior officers were also on the bridge.
Distance by “bells?” (In LSLGuy, above.)
