Your analysis largely repeats mine earlier, but I think this is unlikely. The damage pattern is starboard amidships on the Fitzgerald and port bow on the Crystal. This very strong suggests that the former was to port of the latter prior to the collision. If the Crystal was overtaking ie the vessels were within 22.5° of the same course, the Crystal would have had to turn hard to port to hit the Fitzgerald amidships with its bow, and there is no such turn on the AIS. Rather, there is a slight turn to port and then a crash turn to starboard.
If the slight turn to port had occurred while the Crystal was overtaking, causing a collision course, the damage would be glancing, yet this was a near-t-bone.
The only way the “Crystal overtaking” possibility could account for the damage is if while the Crystal was overtaking the Fitzgerald turned hard enough to starboard, at just the wrong moment, as to cross the bow of the Crystal. and if the Fitzgerald did that then the Crystal was not at fault. While, as you say, the Crystal is the give way vessel while overtaking, the Fitzgerald still has to comply with the overriding rule that you can’t turn to starboard while there is a vessel to your starboard.
I’ve been investigating maritime incidents for owners and insurers for 27 years. At this point post incident, the timing, and every other detail being reported, is incorrect. Always
Repeated for emphasis. Certainly correct IME.
Not quite. Typically, the problem is fuel viscosity. If the vessel runs too slow for too long it doesn’t run hot enough for HFO. But for maneuovering, the vessel can go to MDO and work at dead slow speeds. However, this is not relevant for present purposes. A master won’t use MDO except when strictly necessary (too expensive) and wouldn’t do it just for the sake of wasting time. They would just go as slow as possible on HFO, which is far less than the reported 13 knots.
As mentioned here and shown in Muffin’s second link, the Crystal’s path has two major anomalies in addition to ordinary course changes. Per Fubaya and Princhester just above, it’s appearing like the first, larger, looping maneuver (Muffin’s red circled area) was the collision and immediate aftermath.
Would any of our shipping experts care to speculate on that second tightly looped kink to the northeast of Oshima Island? AIS data glitch?
Doubt it’s a glitch. Vessels at sea tend to get very good GPS accuracy and for every record shown on a summarised AIS track as shown on marinetraffic.com, there are dozens more, actually transmitted. So v. unlikely for a glitched reading to cause the track anomaly.
I would guess the Crystal collided, then turned and came back to render aid given that Fitzgerald was damaged badly enough it could have been sinking. Then after a while (presumably after Fitzgerald confirmed things were under control) the Crystal headed for Tokyo.
However, unless there is a pressing emergency need to do so, a Harbour Master won’t usually let a damaged vessel into port without some degree of consideration because of the risk it will sink/explode/cause damage/block a channel/drop oil etc Similarly, a wharf operator will be reluctant to let a vessel come alongside their wharf if it’s going to cause issues and get in the way because the vessel is not relevantly operational.
My educated WAG is that the Crystal dropped anchor or at least stopped at the location of the kink while the master, owners and authorities got their heads around what to do next. Note that the kink is at a location seemingly out of the main routes to the South West and South of Tokyo, somewhat tucked in behind Oshima. I’d say that’s probably a good spot to drop the pick while everyone takes stock.
They might have even flown or boated some experts out to assess the damage. Would they need to empty the font ballast tanks to inspect the inner hull? Seems like that would be a big concern not only for safety but also for where to have repairs done.
So, having rapidly scaned the thread, I haven’t see addressed the Fitzgerald’s Standing Night Orders.
On every Naval Vessel I’ve sailed, the Night Orders include provisions for monitoring closely approaching vessels, and notifying the skipper in cases of notably close approaches, even if he was a sleep. In every case where I can recall specific numbers, those two CPA thresholds were five nautical miles and one nautical mile. IOW, when the ACX Crystal came within five miles of the Fitz, they should have been establishing a track on her, and inside one mile, they should have been racking the skipper out.
At some distance less than one mile, variable upon determiniation of the OOD, there should have been a collision alarm sounded.
That the skipper was gravely injured in his own stateroom tells me that the collision alarm had not sounded - A collision alarm would’ve had him racing to the dridge, whatever his state of dress. He might have still be injured, but it wouldn’t have been inside his cabin. That suggests to me that the Bridge and CIC watchstanders were unaware of the extent of their peril.
It’s debatable whether or not a timely collision alarm would’ve saved the seven in berthing - I dunno. It certainly wouldn’t have hurt.
But this is a well known characteristic of low speeds back before camshaft-less electronic control, relatively high minimum speed. The issue isn’t HFO/MDO changeover, it’s fuel injection pressure when generated by a mechanical camshaft rather than separate constant pressure injection pumps on electronically controlled engines. It’s a separate issue from HFO/MDO changeover, which not all low speeds even have to do. The heat for the fuel system doesn’t necessary come directly from the engine. You can design that system so external heat alone is adequate to get the design (fuel delivery) viscosity, even with almost all the fuel circulating back to the booster pump, not being sent by the injection pumps into the cylinders, ‘dock to dock on HFO’, then just flush the system with MDO. Although, not all ships do that even if so fitted. And merchant ships now also burn in MDO in a growing number of coastal air quality zones. It’s even possible IMO will ban HFO eventually.
But anyway low speed diesel fixed pitch prop ships with camshafts, ie most merchant ships, have a relatively high minimum speed compared to the creeping ability of a CP prop, electric drive and/or steam turbine ship. I made clear it is significantly lower than 13kts, more like 6 for a ship like this. But it was in response to discussion of ‘dead slow’: low speed diesel ships with fixed pitch props don’t really have dead slow by old time steamship standards.
I’ve seen many comments (on other sites) saying the captain should have been on the bridge while navigating through such a crowded part of the ocean. Is that a valid criticism?
I don’t know if I missed this and it was covered. I read on another page where someone speculated that the ship was on auto, changed course either at the time of collision or right before, traveled a bit then someone put it back on auto. The u-turn was the nag system coming back to hit the nav point.
A court martial is a criminal trial. A conviction in a court martial is the same as being convicted in federal court. You are a convicted felon. They are not courts of inquiry. There are catch all charges like “conduct unbecoming” but it is still a criminal charge.
Assuming they were paying attention and would have chosen to sound an alarm, at what distance/time would an alarm likely have been sounded? I would SWAG that 30-60 seconds would be enough time to get everyone awakened and moved somewhere safer (e.g. port side above the water line, rather than sleeping quarters below the waterline on the starboard side) in anticipation of an impending collision.
Basedon the freighter’s AIS, here’s a page by Steffan Watkins with a zoomable time/distance/speed map animation, a zoomable static plot with time/speed/distance, and a couple of time/speed/position/course tables. I found it really helpful in conveying what the freighter was doing.
The author’s conjecture is that the freighter was on auto-pilot while the crew sleeped, T-boned the destroyer and was knocked off course, regained course and speed once the destroyer was shaken off, then about half an hour when the someone on its crew woke up and realized there had been in a collision it was taken off auto-pilot and turned around to return to the scene.
That still does not give enough information to account for what the destroyer had been doing or not doing.
Are ships allowed to use autopilot in crowded shipping lanes? That may be a major factor.
That still doesn’t explain how the USS Fitzgerald failed to see a huge cargo ship coming straight at them.
It’s a bit like driving a VW beetle and not observing a Mac Truck.
CNN reports that the collision occurred an hour earlier. Raising the same questions as the other link.
The damage to the Crystal was in the area of the forepeak tank. This is in regular use because it is one of the best tanks to use to adjust trim. The first step would have been to sound all ballast tanks in the area to check for rising levels. If there were no signs of rising levels, an internal inspection could probably wait.
In those waters, the Fitzgerald would never have been less than 5nm from another vessel, and would have been within 1nm every other minute. Go look at the AIS image. It’s like a crowded cocktail party out there.
That guy is a clueless armchair idiot who wouldn’t know the blunt end from the pointy end, pontificating from ignorance. He’ll be explaining how his lack of data on the location of the Crystal in the next few weeks shows there’s clearly something hush hush going on (probably renaming the vessel the Mary Celeste).
The idea that the bridge on the Crystal was unmanned in those crowded waters is so unlikely that it can be all but dismissed out of hand. The idea that both watchkeepers were asleep is almost as unlikely.
But the idea that they hit the Fitzgerald and didn’t notice? Is to frickin laugh. Ship’s officers wake up with a change in the vessel’s motion or engine note. Hit a frickin’ destroyer, halve speed and turn hard to starboard? There wasn’t a person asleep on the Crystal within seconds. The entire complement of officers was on the bridge within 30-60 seconds of the collision.
This cluesless nincompoop would have you believe the ship’s complement slept through the equivalent of a minor car crash and just rolled over and kept sleeping.
All the rest of his analysis shows the same degree of “insight”. It seems the Crystal was slowed to about 11.2 kt by the collision. That means it was not stopped by the collision and to render assistance it had to head away, then turn around back. Captain Clueless is too clueless to realise that the slight increase in speed after that is probably because the master ordered a standard speed which probably wouldn’t have been 11.2 kt. Then the vessel turns to the NE. This is because it was on autopilot. Or because it was heading towards a frickin’ island and the master of the Crystal sensibly turned back on to a safe course.
It takes the Crystal about 36 minutes to turn around. Bear in mind that sounding the tanks and checking that the Crystal is in a safe condition herself to go back and help the “Fitzgerald” would take all of that 36 minutes even at a run. But no, this is because those damn Crystal fools are all sleeping.
“SWAG?”