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Suspended Sentances for Pilot and Captain River Humber crash


Naughty Cal

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From your link:

Speaking following sentencing, the surveyor in charge for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s Hull office, Michael Groark, said the case show that “rules are there for a reason”. 

 

Jeez, no flies on that nice Mr Groark are there! 

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On 11/11/2017 at 12:08, Iain_S said:

Not quite as simple as Yachting Boat World make out!

MAIB Report here

It was interesting reading but it was fairly simple in that City of Rotterdam was not where it should have been. The MAIB report also has the interesting criticism of ''over-reliance on the Pilot', for a Skipper who has no Pilot Exemption Certificates for that river that is probably an easy mistake to make!  There was also the implied criticism of Primula Seaways  for failing to stop sooner however with the winds gusting to 40knots and a high windage, had they slowed too much they would have been pushed out of Bull Channel and into the mooring area. I would say the Court Case came to the right conclusion since a head-on collsion between two boats of this size was very fortunate not to have led to serious injuries or death.

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I think all on the bridge knew that City of Rotterdam was north of where it should have been. The pilot thought the ship's head was pointing a lot further south than it actually was, with Primula Seaways  off his port bow and that the ships would pass port to port, while the true situation was that Primula Seaways was off his starboard bow and the ships were on a collision course. 

I agree that the court came to the right conclusion, although the major factor in the collision was the bridge design of City of Rotterdam. Even a prominent readout of heading or the ship's own AIS on the bridge could have prevented the collision.

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10 hours ago, Iain_S said:

I think all on the bridge knew that City of Rotterdam was north of where it should have been. The pilot thought the ship's head was pointing a lot further south than it actually was, with Primula Seaways  off his port bow and that the ships would pass port to port, while the true situation was that Primula Seaways was off his starboard bow and the ships were on a collision course. 

I agree that the court came to the right conclusion, although the major factor in the collision was the bridge design of City of Rotterdam. Even a prominent readout of heading or the ship's own AIS on the bridge could have prevented the collision.

I agree that both of these would have been a massive help and probably avoided a collision, comparing the AIS of Primula Seaways and his own ship's bearing he would have clearly seen that they were reciprocal. Even something as simple as a small hand bearing compass would have told him that they were on a collision course since, despite what he though he was doing, the compass would have shown a constant bearing  towards Primula Seaways. Because it is so simple I don't suppose that Pilots actually carry them.

In all honesty, all of my offshore sailing has been in comparatively small sailing vessels in which we spend most of our time keeping well out of the way of these big boys:(. The principles still remain much the same though and I do find it hard to understand why an experienced pilot would steer by eye at night without some back-up reference of what the actual bearing of the ship is.

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