The Nautical Institute presents an incident where, in daylight and good visibility, cargo vessel A was making about 12 knots with a lone OOW on the bridge.
Auto-pilot was being used for helm control and the OOW was occupied with administrative tasks. The radar was on but targets were not being acquired and alarms were not activated.
Meanwhile, about five nm away from vessel A, vessel B had recently stopped and was drifting due to technical difficulties with the main engine. This vessel’s lone OOW had not updated the vessel status to ‘not under command’ (NUC) on the AIS, nor were the required NUC day signals raised. Vessel A maintained its course and speed, with a steady bearing and decreasing range to vessel B.
Over the next 20 minutes, vessel A’s OOW continued to undertake other duties on the bridge and was not monitoring nearby traffic. As vessel A approached the drifting vessel B on a virtual collision course a crew member who had been working on deck ran to the bridge and alerted the OOW to the developing situation. Still making a speed of 12 knots, the OOW immediately used the autopilot to initiate a turn to starboard before switching to hand steering to increase the rudder angle. However, the turn was not sufficient to avoid collision 10 seconds later. Vessel A’s port side struck vessel B’s starboard quarter, resulting in hull damage to both vessels above the waterline.
The preliminary assessment found, among other things, that the ECDIS unit on both vessels was set to silent mode, with all audible alarms deactivated while underway. Also, although vessel B was visible on both of vessel A’s radars, the target had not been acquired on the ARPA.
Lessons learned
- An OOW should actively navigate the vessel and not undertake any other tasks, ever!
- Activated alarms are an asset when at sea – use them.
- If your vessel’s navigational situation changes, set the appropriate instruments and signals to reflect this change in status.
