DisasterAvoidance

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Understand the Nature of Disasters

Do Not Sail Into Danger

“Although it may not be very comforting, the truth is there is no such thing as an unsinkable ship. No matter how sophisticated the safety features or how impressive the size, all ships are vulnerable given the wrong circumstances.”

The wrong circumstances: Recreational sailors and passage makers have a choice. They can choose routes and seasons that minimise danger.

So, the first rule is: Do not sail into danger. The second is: Have situational awareness. Be prepared for any and all eventualities. Preparedness starts with your state of mind, the design of your vessel, followed by careful maintenance, and well practiced procedures.

Understand How Disasters Happen

Except for acts of god and red-light incidents, disasters are preventable. AAmpere (amp), SI unit of electrical current disaster is the outcome of a series of cumulative mistakes, human error that compounds an initial mistake. Once a threshold is reached in the cascading series of small events, disaster is almost inevitable.

No matter how well you plan, there is always the possibility of someone running the red light, and broadsiding you. By definition, a red-light incident cannot be foreseen. Sometimes skill and luck will serve you well; at others nothing will forestall disaster once the red-light incident has occurred.

Worse, initial red-light incidents can appear quite innocuous, i.e., they do not look like one. It is only when you respond inappropriately to the first small triggering incident that they open like a Pandora’sSecond Box to reveal the full scope of the disaster that awaits. Events then unfold too rapidly for human response. Mistakes multiply. A chain reaction sets in.

Chernobyl goes critical. Three Mile Island barely escapes a similar fate. The unhappy bottom line is that you can never plan for everything.

RMS Titanic

The Titanic is the iconic symbol of disaster. It was considered to be unsinkable despite obvious design flaws that were only admitted retrospectively. They combined with initial human error before and after the collision with an iceberg to create a full-fledged disaster.

New year's Day 2017 Britain's Channel Four broadcast new evidence revealing the ship also had a spontaneous coal fire raging for three weeks.

Titanic’s Sister Ship the Britannic

The example of Titanic’s sister ship the Britannic, is instructive. She was launched after Titanic and incorporated in her design many lessons learned from Titanic, including watertight bulkheads. In World War I, she hit a mine off the coast of Greece. She went down in five minutes – faster than the Titanic.

Britannic was being used as a hospital ship before the era of antibiotics. At dawn every day the nurses would open the portholes to air out the stench from suppurating wounds. The stevedores slept in the forepeak, while the coal bunkers were aft. To change shifts quickly, the watertight doors were opened. Open portholes, open doors. That’s when she struck the mine.

Italian Liner Andrea Doria

By the end of World War II the lessons of the Titanic had been institutionalized. Hundreds of thousands of people were crossing the oceans safely in passenger liners.

Yet on July 25, 1956 at 11:10 pm, disaster struck again. The Italian liner Andrea Doria was inbound for New York. The Swedish liner Stockholm was outbound for Sweden. Both ships were travelling at excessive speed in dense fog because fast crossings were a competitive advantage. As a precaution, the captain of the Andrea Doria ordered all watertight doors closed.

Each had the other identified on radar. They were on parallel tracks, with the Stockholm to the north, heading east. For some reason, the Stockholm planned to pass port-to-port, red light to red light. The Andrea Doria thought they would pass green-to-green. As the two ships neared, the Stockholm turned to starboard, to pass in front of the Italian liner at a safe distance of 15 miles, as indicated by three rings on the radar screen.

But the radar was set to a range of five miles, not 15. The closing distance was only three miles. The Stockholm struck the bow of the Andrea Doria, tearing a hole into her huge near-empty fuel tanks, slicing open seven levels of deck and crushing the forward watertight bulkhead.

The next day, a spellbound world watched newsreels of the Andrea Doria lying on her side, before slipping slowly beneath the North Atlantic.

Today the site is a challenge for divers.

Fishing Vessel Gaul

The Gaul is another example. On December 17, 2004 the UK Commissioner for Wrecks, Mr Justice Steel, released the results of a re-investigation into the 1974 sinking of the fishing trawler Gaul. The then 18-month-old state-of-the-art watertight vessel had sunk in minutes in the Barents Sea in a Force 9 gale and seas of only 3 mMetre, SI unit of length.

Based on new video footage of the wreck, the Commissioner found that it sank because two duff and offal chutes were open in the stern. A following sea poured tons of water down the chutes. When the captain realised the danger, he turned to face the wind. The beam-on waves and wind, and tons of sloshing water inside the hull caused the trawler to roll and sink with the loss of all 36 hands.

HMCSHer Majesty's Canadian Ship Chicoutimi Catches Fire

Yet another example of cumulative errors is the tragic fire that disabled the Canadian submarine HMCS Chicoutimi off Northern Ireland on October 5, 2004. In this case, in a gale with 9-m waves, the sub was running on the surface with both conning-tower hatches open (top and bottom). This is not normal.

The hatches were open because a nut had fallen off an air vent in the tower, preventing a dive, and sailors were working to repair it. Directly below in the hull, 400-Amp electrical cables had only one layer of waterproof sealant instead of the specified three. A wave swept over the bridge and poured into the control room. There were several feet of water sloshing around. The water caused short circuits and a major electrical fire.

The electrical fire disabled the submarine completely. It had to issue a Mayday. The British navy mounted a rescue operation. Eventually the Chicoutimi was towed to Scotland for repairs. During the fire, Lieutenant Chris Saunders for some reason did not access the emergency air supply. In the dense smoke, no one noticed. He later died from smoke inhalation. Eight other sailors were injured.

Queen of the North Runs Aground

In March 2006, BBeam.C. Ferries’ 125-m Queen of the North was transiting Wright Sound southerly on the Inside Passage on the night of March 22 when it ran aground on Gil Island at 12:43 am, hung for an hour on Gil Rock and then quickly sank in 365 m of water. The topography is fiord-like, with rocky shores shelving rapidly to vast depths. Local villagers saved 99 out of 101 passengers.

The weather was good. The ferry had three radars, GPSGlobal Positioning System, electronic charts, gyro compass, automatic pilot and three watch officers. She ran aground at a reported 19 knots, tearing her bottom out and sinking in one piece.

Coming down Grenville Channel the watch would have been looking for a flashing light to port at Sainty Point. It marks a transit to shift course to the east to line up with the distant Point Cumming light at the entrance to McKay Reach. Without this shift, a ship will remain on course for the northern shore of Gil Island.

Colin Henthorne, captain of the Queen of the North was dismissed from employment. Four years later in March 2010 fourth officer Karl Lilgert was charged with criminal negligence.

Colin Henthorne is the author of The Queen of the North Disaster, published in November 2016 by Harbour Publishing.

Avoid Human Error

The Titanic sank because of hubris. The Britannic sank because of expediency. The Andrea Doria sank because the Stockholm mis-set its radar. The Gaul sank because the chute doors were not maintained and were seized open with rust. HMCS Chicoutimi almost sank because of expediency. The Queen of the North sank because of an inexplicable error in navigation.