Something wrong in our Industry ??

I like the idea of an open thread. A wise captain once told me "Only a fool learns from his own mistakes; A wise man learns from someone else's".

the tread about "Electra" says, that the owner drove the yacht. Perhaps not enough experience with a boat in this size.

About "Mirabella": I heard, that the anchors did not had stop the yacht and the start of the engines was too long, because she has no start button on the brigde or something. If it right...why? I am very sure it's not about the money that they safe another start button for the engines.

As to why it's happening in general, I'd guess it boils to down to supply vs. demand and the law of averages. Everything I read says the yacht industry is growing by leaps and bounds, with more new boats order every year. In that case, where are all the experienced captains and crews coming from? Prior to this boom, where there hundreds, or even thousands, of unemployed captains all over the world, just waiting to get hired by newly wealthy people with a hankering for the high seas? Somewhere along the line the skill has to suffer.

Add to that the fact that with more and more yachts afloat each year, chances are you'll see more and more suffer from something untoward.

The situation is not that bad. The numbers of yacht movements and the sheer numbers of vessels out there would indicate a larger number of mishaps should be happening.
In some instances, lack of proper planning and or lack of local information seem to be the causes.

reasons for accidents

Many of the accidents have incident reports, each published by the vessels flag state, i.e. Mirabella V, Isle of Man. It is just a matter of seaching all the flag state websites to find copies of these reports.
Also the the country of the waters that the incident occurs in (certainly in Europe, as been shown in several of the aforementioned cases) investigates and will prosocute if they feel there is any case to answer for, especially of endangering life (crew as well as guests), polution, or unqualified person on helm/bridge (prosocution is of the captain as he is responsible for all occurances on board), Prosocution can also extend to management and owners also.
A few flag states investigate but do not publish reports, each case depends on the individual flag states policy.

Regarding the qualifications of crew, to obtain the master 500 (generally this cuts in at about 45-50m) it requires an absolute minimum of 4 years, 3 years to get to Officer of the watch or chief mate and then a further year minimum to be eligable for the master 500, all this in continuous employment (service time) excluding any time off for the training modules and holidays. The reality is that most people will take closer to 6-7 years to achieve the full master 500, and in fact the MCA are about to release a new updated MGN (Marine Guidance Notice) 195, which will also include increase sea time (time underway) on top of the service time. This will cause even less qualified crew for senior levels to come through the system, a catch 22 situation, this is already evident with a serious lack of OOW's for the 2nd Officer positions on the 500-3000 gt vessels.

No one can blame schools for the crew emerging, they give training to the flag state approved level (and are inspected to check they do so) but if the examiners pass the candidates (and all examiners in the RYA/MCA are independent) on the candidates performance on that day (good day/bad day) schools or trainers can not be blamed later for an individuals actions, (would be nice if we could clone good crew at all levels, who will never make human error judgements), Schools just deliver the training the flag states stipulate and the students pay for.

Fortunately, with the tightening up of flag stae controls, more vessels are inspected for structure and seaworthiness, so one would hope accidents caused by these issues will become fewer as more vessels are inspected, but this is down to the individual flag states having enough inspectors and sending them to where the yachts opperate (MCA started this 2 years ago) Many yachts also have 5 year inspections for LLoyds Abs etc, to ensure seaworthiness.

Human error, this can and will happen, for many different reasons, tiredness is often a cause of bad judgement, but it is usually a small event that triggers a domino effect to a large incident behind many of the incidents.

As crew quarters dictate crew numbers and all MCA yachts legally require a dedicated bunk per crew member, (no hotbunking) crew exhaustion will continue, designers design for owners comfort, restricting crew space, etc etc, but manning regs are beginning to make an impression as they are law, so hopefully this will be addressed by designers in the future. I was recently acting as a go between on a new build, and had to instruct a yard (they had designed the yacht) that the crew quarters only allowed for legally required engineering (high Kw so needed 2 engineers) and deck crew, so the owners and crew would have no chef, or interior crew (all the hotel services side of the yacht), the design had to be altered to allow for an extra 4 crew !!

I will be interested to see other peoples imput on this subject, and strongly believe that we can all learn continuously (and need to ) but ask that no accusations that are not provable are laid at anyones door, mud sticks even if aimed wrongly, and this could and will affect peoples employability and futures, if wrongly speculated about, unfair, but true.

Safety is in the owners hand

Personally, I don't think that the number of accidents is so much higher in the yachting world compared to commercial shipping. But it's hard to compare as most yachts don't even run 1000 hours per year.

Owners tend to believe that their yacht is safe when it is built under class and MCA rules & supervision. While this is almost correct for passenger ships, this is absolutely incorrect for yachts.
For example the watertight subdivision required by class and MCA is usually not enough to keep the boat afloat with even a single compartement flooded.
It's up to the designer to perform the proper damaged stability calculations and to produce a design that is as safe as the owner wants. It's up to the owner to ask them to have it done. Some owners don't want to pay for the safety (you pay in cash, sometimes also in comfort and speed). The current regulations allow the owner to set his own standard of safety - which is a good thing in my opinion. The only problem is that owners are often not informed enough and have no idea about how safe their yacht is.

This said, in many cases (e.g. Mirabella V, Land's End, Electra), the crew seems to be the weakest link, so it makes sense to focus on that rather than imposing a set of stricter rules for the construction. It's often bad enough as it is and it must be said, the loss of life on yachts - which should be the main concern - is minimal.

Crewagency, my vote would be: 1 - 3 - 2

I don't know enough of the details to make comments on the cause of recent sinkings. Law of averages would dictate that as there are more yachts there will be an increase in incidents. I believe that maintenance and design are large factors. (Mirabella's anchors were too light by 1/3 after rig windage was factored into the calculations.)
Crew is also a factor. The accident rate in commercial vessels prompted the changes in regulations that brought us STCW.
In a perfect world there would be no crew error. Of course in that world we would never work more than 12 hours per day, and everyone would get at least 8 hours of solid sleep per night. Crew training and certification is getting stricter, and this is a good thing in the long run.

Four years to get a 500 ton license is some kind of record. The USCG requires 720 days at sea (8 hour day) underway to get a 100 ton license, then an additional 1050 days underway to get to a 500 ton license. That is over 5 years IF you were underway EVERY DAY (which of course is impossible). A 1600 ton license requires 1440 days underway, after the 100 ton license (the MCA is lighter on the sea time requirement. Please don't flood me with hate mail, I know the oral tests and practical are tough).
Somewhere along the way the new captain should have picked up actual experience under way and in a variety of conditions.


Dave

Practical Vs. School Experience

Dave,
I agree that the STCW requirements and stricter guidlelines are all well and good, but it seems to me that there are a great number of captains out there who have spent more time in class than on a boat. Sea time is being calculated from time spent on a boston whaler as a teenager.

Sorry Ken,
Seatime for higher licenses must be accrued while sailing on your license. In other words, the 1440 days for a 1600 ton license can only start after you get your 100 ton license, of those days 720 days must be aboard vessels of greater then 100 gross tons.
It took me almost 10 years working full time (both commercial and yachts) to go from 100 ton to 1600/3000 ton.
I don't know where "instant captains" come from, it sure is not from doing it "by the book".

The reason for all the time is to get practical, real world experience. I believe that the knowledge is not being passed down from Captains to crew and mates. Either young guys want to just rush to the largest boat possible or the captains are afraid to teach because the new guys may work for less money and take their jobs. Whatever it is there is not enough info being passed along.

Dave

I was fortunate enough to work under a captain who had enough confidence (and experience) to train me, without a single concern that I would "take his job". In fact he was more like a proud father when I accomplished a big goal - like docking the boat without him having to take the helm... Now that I've been running yachts for several years I have taken that lesson to heart - cross train the other crew to do all the jobs on board including mine. If for no other reason than safety. Wouldn't I want the mate, or another crew member to get the boat to the dock if I were injured? The bottom line is I was lucky. So many crew go through this industry without on the job training.
J

Practical Experience

Dave,
I hold the same license that you do and also worked a long time to get it. I think that we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that everyone took the same track though.
I have seen at least a few deckhands work in the industry for one or two years and then go to "that" government agency across the Atlantic and obtain a 3000 ton license after attending several months of classes. Those guys are using their boston whaler time toward their licenses.
That is also not to say that we are perfect in the US. I have heard several instances of ABs or deckhands in the commercial industry who aquire seatime while they are at the dock or in a shipyard (day for day) and then obtain licensing without ever having stepped foot in a wheelhouse or chart room. As a matter of fact, I have just completed a radar recertification and the instructor told a story about having to teach some of his prior radar students to plot on a chart!
Lastly let me say this... I have been a professional captain for a number of years and the first time that I was ever required to demonstrate that I could handle a vessel was in an 11' RIB whilst I was obtaining certification for Proficiency in Survival Craft.
Ken

No argument there!

Dave

Dear Dave:

It is a good rule of thumb that when you particiapte in a public forum you add things like "I think that", or "it could be argued that", or "many believe that". Because if you don't your statements may be misconstrued as actual fact. I think that IF the anchors were too light, then someone (MCA, Isle of Man, the insurance companies, DMV or the designer) would have subsequently done something about it (or required it). They haven't. So while I enjoy reading a healthy debate I think it is important to be clear about facts versus beliefs. Don't you?

I can tell you that the amount of regulations being heaped onto boats of this size will make it necessary for crew rotation, especially on charter vessels. We are lucky that having 3 vessels allows us some flexibility in moving people around so as to reduce crew burn-out.

Joe

Dear Joe,
Sorry to offend. The last I read in the Yacht Report was that the Classification Society had re-run calculations on anchors and figured that with the rig windage added in the anchors would have been 1/3 larger. I posted on good faith in that report.
As Mirabella carries such a large rig it would make sense that societies used to dealing with smaller yachts and power boats could make an honest miscalculation. I am sorry if I was posting incorrect information.


As to my post, in the future I will attempt to quote sources for such information.

Fair winds and following seas,
Dave

Dave

I think that there is nothing wrong in the industry, we are just more informed thru the medium internet and people how have their digitals and cams everwhere. See SS NORWAY, as the explosion in Miami took place there was a tourist with a cam filming the ship. Pictures say more than just an headline in a magazine.

On the other hand as in normal traffic on your streets there are allways idiots and lets call it bad circumstances or the worst comes to worst. I don't know how many yachts there are on our oceans may be 20.000 over 80', may be more or less. See how many collisions and groundings with merchant ships happen every year, so it is sadly but true only normal that those things also happen to the yachting scene.

The relationship between the owner and the captain is not allways as it should be. If a owner wants to anchor in a from the tourist authority as really beautiful advertised bay and the owner is the overlord aboard and the captain don't wants a long discussion or is just living the slogan "the owner is the king" to much then they sit at the reef.

I remember a client on a 48' from Bremen, Germany to Palma de Mallorca in late oktober some years ago. We had an A6 captain (I think this is what you call a proffessional captain) aboard. We entered the northsea at 2 beaufort and as we passed Helgoland the radar quit and the weather chanced so we had to go back to Helgoland at 6 beaufort rising. All radar repair attempts failed. The following days we drove in 3 to 5 beaufort without radar through the channel and made a stopover in St. Peter Port on the Channel Islands where we finaly managed to repair the radar. To that point the owner made everything to have a bad ride. He said that we where not risky enough. But I think that it is very risky to go to the Channel in the middle of the night without radar with just a 48'. After we entered the Atlantic the weather conditions became really bad so we decided to stop in Brest, France and wait for better weather. This was to much for the owner. He ended the contract as we where in the marina, hired a local unemployed fisherman and drove away. He came not that far. The next day they had 8 beaufort, came to near to land and oversee a rock at Quiberon. If you are a good diver you today can dive to the wreck.

See the two German brothers about 12 years ago who buyed in Denmark a
75' ex-fisherboat built 1912. One of them had a German sportboat license. Everyone in the harbour pleased them not to go to Hamburg on their own but they desided everthing will be ok. By leaving the danish harbour at 6 Beaufort the storm rose to 12 Beaufort at the entrence to the river Elbe. Both died as their boat hit one of the sandbanks there.

I would think that not in all cases it will go this way, but as long no one knows the backround of every sinking or collision all possibilities are open, idiots included. But how many cruises and deliveries have a good end?

Leveller