The Swedish P&I Club Monthly Safety Scenario for September 2014
TheSwedish P&I Club published its Monthly Safety Scenario for September 2014 regardinga collision caused by confusion.The Swedish Club publishes on a monthly basis a new “Monthly Safety Scenario” (MSS) to assist owners in their efforts of complying with the maritime regulations.
It was around midnight and the officers weredoing the watch handover on the containervessel, which was sailing outside the Chinesecoast. On the bridge was a Chinese officer whohad signed on in the previous port but therewere also the 3rd and 2nd Officers there. Theywere both Filipinos and they carried out thewatch handover in Tagalog. The Chinese officerdid not understand Tagalog so he just familiarised himself with the bridge equipment.
During the handover they discussed the trafficsituation but not the vessel that they would collide with.When the handover was finished the Chineseofficer started to ask the Filipino OOW somequestions in English about the bridge equipmentand procedures. This distracted the Filipino OOWfrom monitoring the traffic.At this time the bulker that they were aboutto collide with was on the port bow at a rangeof 14 miles.The container vessel was crossing thebulker’s track from port to starboard and had aCPA of more than 1 miles ahead.
A group of fishing vessels was on the portside of vessel A at a range of 6 miles. The closestfishing vessel to the container vessel’s bow hada CPA of 0.1 mile to starboard. There were twoother fishing vessels in the group with a CPA ofapproximately 0.1 mile as per the AIS.
The bulker featured second from the bottomon the AIS target list. The Filipino officer reducedthe radar range to 6 M and focused his attentionon the fishing vessels. He also did four smalleralterations of 5 degrees to starboard. The Filipinoofficer was concerned about the fishing vessels,which he told the Chinese officer about.The Filipino officer had selected AIS input asdetermining TCPA and CPA on the radar.
The vessel was in Chinese waters so the Filipino officer asked the Chinese officer to call the fishing vessels in Mandarin to tell them to stay clear. The officer on the bulker, who was alos Chinese, heard this and called the container vessel inChinese over the VHF and asked if the containervessel could go astern of them. The bulker vesselwas now on the container vessel’s port bow. TheFilipino did not understand what had been agreedas the arrangements had been made in Chinese.
The Chinese officer told the Filipino officer, inEnglish, that the bulker vessel had agreed to aport-to-port passing. No further explanation wasgiven. The Filipino officer was still confused andquestioned the Chinese officer if a port-to-portpassing arrangement really had been agreed. TheChinese officer said “yes”, but suggested that itmay be better to go astern of the bulker vessel.A couple of minutes later, the Filipino officerordered the lookout to take the wheel and ordered’hard-to-port’ but changed his mind to ‘steady’and then ‘hard-to-starboard’.
The bulker vessel was now very close andcollision could not be avoided as the bulkervessel struck the container vessel amidshipson the portside.
Source: The Swedish P&I Club / Monthly Safety Scenario
