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Not sure there's much needs to be said https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/inside-el-...
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hstewie said:
hstewie said: Not sure there's much needs to be said https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/inside-el-...
Oh my. Blimey :-(
I’m surprised how bad some of the weather data fed to the ship was. I can’t help but disagree with the author’s view of this being a system failure. If they had accurate and up to date situational information, including a working anemometer and better weather data feeds, then they would have had a better view of the situation and could have made better, life saving decisions.
I’m no sailor but I’m also surprised that list can stop lube systems. On something that is designed to spend its life rocking and rolling, why aren’t those systems airless, fully pressurised and able to keep working up to silly angles of list/roll?
So much collective experience on that crew but it seems it was an impossible ask with the equipment and information available to them :-( A very sobering read.
I’m surprised how bad some of the weather data fed to the ship was. I can’t help but disagree with the author’s view of this being a system failure. If they had accurate and up to date situational information, including a working anemometer and better weather data feeds, then they would have had a better view of the situation and could have made better, life saving decisions.
I’m no sailor but I’m also surprised that list can stop lube systems. On something that is designed to spend its life rocking and rolling, why aren’t those systems airless, fully pressurised and able to keep working up to silly angles of list/roll?
So much collective experience on that crew but it seems it was an impossible ask with the equipment and information available to them :-( A very sobering read.
Thanks for linking, a sobering read indeed.
For those who haven't, I really suggest a read of Sebastian Junger's "Perfect Storm"-the book that inspired the film. A truly epic work of fiction that takes a huge amount of research to establish what happened to the disappeared "Andrea Gail".
For those who haven't, I really suggest a read of Sebastian Junger's "Perfect Storm"-the book that inspired the film. A truly epic work of fiction that takes a huge amount of research to establish what happened to the disappeared "Andrea Gail".
The inaccessible ruptured fire pump main inlet shut off valve was the critical failure from which there was no turning back. Impossible to know if the outcome would have been any different had that not happened, but at least they would have had a chance to get on top of the water that had flooded in from the now closed hatch and ruptured fire pump inlet pipe. Could have been enough to keep them afloat long enough to fight the list and get the engine back up.
Immaterial now, but this was a poor piece of design that didn’t consider a not uncommon way for a Ship’s internal operating environment to quickly change (a hold flood) and in doing so creating a fatal set of circumstances.
Immaterial now, but this was a poor piece of design that didn’t consider a not uncommon way for a Ship’s internal operating environment to quickly change (a hold flood) and in doing so creating a fatal set of circumstances.
I'm going to ask what's probably a dumb question, but here goes:
article said:
But here’s a rule of thumb for the Northern Hemisphere: whether you are traveling by ship, airplane, car, or horse, if you have a wind from the left you are moving toward lower atmospheric pressure—and that means moving toward worsening weather.
What does it mean by wind from the left? Surely that will vary depending on which direction you're facing?Zetec-S said:
I'm going to ask what's probably a dumb question, but here goes:
Because storms rotate counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. So no matter which direction you are facing (by you, I mean the direction of travel), if the wind is coming from the left, it means you are heading into the storm.article said:
But here’s a rule of thumb for the Northern Hemisphere: whether you are traveling by ship, airplane, car, or horse, if you have a wind from the left you are moving toward lower atmospheric pressure—and that means moving toward worsening weather.
What does it mean by wind from the left? Surely that will vary depending on which direction you're facing?Zetec-S said:
I'm going to ask what's probably a dumb question, but here goes:
It assumes you are moving in the direction you are facing article said:
But here’s a rule of thumb for the Northern Hemisphere: whether you are traveling by ship, airplane, car, or horse, if you have a wind from the left you are moving toward lower atmospheric pressure—and that means moving toward worsening weather.
What does it mean by wind from the left? Surely that will vary depending on which direction you're facing?
TEKNOPUG said:
Because storms rotate counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. So no matter which direction you are facing (by you, I mean the direction of travel), if the wind is coming from the left, it means you are heading into the storm.
What happens when a storm crosses the equator?4x4Tyke said:
The article in Vanity Fare was very sympathetically written, probably to appeal to a wide audience who like a good human interest story rather than cold hard facts.The Wikipedia link above is only a brief summary.
Read the full report to understand why he was apportioned most of the blame. He failed to correctly carry out his duties and responsibilities as Master of the vessel in the lead up to the sinking. Biggest mistake was playing chicken with a big tropical storm that eventually developed into a big hurricane.
https://media.defense.gov/2017/Oct/01/2001820187/-...
ETA: the above sounds harsh, I do of course feel huge sympathy for the master & crew.
Spent a lot of time at sea, we've all made mistakes and/or taken short cuts but thankfully 99.9% of the time the chain of events leading to disaster is broken through good practice or a bit of luck.
Edited by swanny71 on Tuesday 10th April 18:02
The investigation needed to be separate and independent. When the organisation doing the report and pointing the finger at him is making most of the mistakes, like issuing weather reports that are 12 hour old, issuing the duplicate report 12 hours later still (24ish in total). When their weather reports are just plain wrong like downplaying the category. When they put the his emergency calls through to a call centre, I'll take their report with a ton of salt.
When he is demoted for putting safety first he is not the ships master.
When he need permission to change to a safer & longer route and authorisation arrives hours too late to do anything, he is not the master.
When he needs permission to send his distress signal he is not the master.
He was a man trying to do his best in an impossible situation and looks like he is being screwed over in death as well as life.
When he is demoted for putting safety first he is not the ships master.
When he need permission to change to a safer & longer route and authorisation arrives hours too late to do anything, he is not the master.
When he needs permission to send his distress signal he is not the master.
He was a man trying to do his best in an impossible situation and looks like he is being screwed over in death as well as life.
Edited by 4x4Tyke on Tuesday 10th April 22:37
4x4Tyke said:
The investigation needed to be separate and independent. When the organisation doing the report and pointing the finger at him is making most of the mistakes, like issuing weather reports that are 12 hour old, issuing the duplicate report 12 hours later still (24ish in total). When their weather reports and just plain wrong like downplaying the category. When they put the his emergency calls through a call centre, I'll take their report with a ton of salt.
When he is demoted for putting safety first he is not the ships master.
When he need permission to change to a safer & longer route and authorisation arrives hours too late to do anything, he is not the master.
When he needs permission to send his distress signal he is not the master.
He was a man trying to do his best in an impossible situation and look like he is being screwed over in death as well as life.
You either haven't read the report or haven't understood it's contents. There are other points raised in the investigation report but below are relevant to your post.When he is demoted for putting safety first he is not the ships master.
When he need permission to change to a safer & longer route and authorisation arrives hours too late to do anything, he is not the master.
When he needs permission to send his distress signal he is not the master.
He was a man trying to do his best in an impossible situation and look like he is being screwed over in death as well as life.
The US Coastguard's & NTSB's investigations (much like our own MAIB) are independant.
The report critises aspects of the USCG responses/actions and makes recommendations.
The Master did not require permission to change course (the same vessel had taken a longer but safer route only weeks before to avoid a smaller tropical storm).
There were opportunities to change the planned route as the weather worsened.
The bridge watchkeeper woke him to discuss an updated weather report received a few hours before things went pear shaped. He ignored it.
He ignored other senior bridge crew's concerns and suggestions for changing course to avoid the storm.
He did not need permission to send distress signal - he chose for whatever reason to give his DPA a polite 'heads-up'.
Reading the transcripts from the bridge voice recorder it seems he initially failed to adequately understand or express the seruiousness of the situation to the shore authorities.
"Call center" is not like you imagine it.
By the time he made these calls it was already too late.
The shipping company also got severely critised in the report.
Weather reports for the storm/hurricane were conflicting, none of the forecasting agencies really knew what the storm would do or where it would track. Surely he should have assumed a worse case scenario? That's what "my" captains have done in the past.
Edited by swanny71 on Tuesday 10th April 19:48
Edited by swanny71 on Tuesday 10th April 19:49
Simpo Two said:
TEKNOPUG said:
Because storms rotate counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. So no matter which direction you are facing (by you, I mean the direction of travel), if the wind is coming from the left, it means you are heading into the storm.
What happens when a storm crosses the equator?Storms with enough energy to keep the spin if their tracks were going over the equator fall foul of another effect - the coriolis kicks in again and pushes storms away from the equator in each hemisphere.
So generally you have a 5 degree band where storms don't form, and from there they get pushed north or south.
Bit of simple explanation: https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/hurricanes.htm...
The Coriolis wiki page has pretty huge detail as usual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force#Meteo...
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