A London judge ruled that a panamax bulker was involved in two collisions just 13 hours apart in the Suez canal after failing to moor properly after the first pile-up.
The bulker Alexander swung out from its moorings just as a convoy of northbound ships was preparing to pass on one of the narrowest stretches of the canal on 16 July 2018.
In the meantime, the NYK Line-managed containership NYK Orpheus managed to stop before hitting the Alexander but had been sailing too fast and had an inadequate lookout, according to Justice Andrew Baker in a ruling in London’s Admiralty Courts.
The Alexander was moored up at the side of the canal after its propeller and rudder were damaged in a three-ship collision the previous day.
The Suez Canal Authority allowed the convoy to pass the vessel and two tugs that were due to tow the damaged Alexander.
Two ships passed safely but the third was travelling too fast. This caused the Alexander to break its mooring, with the stern of the vessel swinging out into the canal, being hit by the Orpheus.
The judge decided that the Alexander had been negligent in using only six mooring lines instead of 10, while the crew failed to quickly raise the alarm when they realised that something was going wrong.
Alexander’s imprudently inadequate mooring is the root cause of all that followed and was a serious failure of good seamanship on board that stricken ship. Had Alexander been properly moored, she would not have broken free so as to become a danger to Orpheus
the judge said in his ruling.
As a result, Justice Baker ruled that the Alexander and the Orpheus should pay 42% of the damages to the other ship. However, he also raised concerns about the seamanship of the three vessels and found that officers were “passive and insufficiently in command.”
In fact, concerns expressed by the pilots regarding passing the Alexander were not passed on or discussed with the ships’ officers, partly due to the language difficulties, according to the judge.
