Bourbon Dolphin capsizes

Anchor handlers typically do not have deck cargo since this would possibly interfere with their handling of the anchor lines/chains.

 

Yes that is true coopman but the BD is an AHTS and could have been carrying deck cargo when she sailed from port(clearing most/all of it before handling anchors). Also they often have a deck full of anchors, buoys, pennants and chain (depending upon the job) that can cover most of the deck just leaving the central strip and aft area clear (see earlier picture that was posted)

 

Interesting to note that all sorts of people are talking 'bout GM etc but what actually happened? Stretching the old grey matter back several years to when I was mate / 2nd mate on AHTS's what WE did was take the draft aft / fwd work out the mean, check the vessel was above her marks and most of the time that was it! Stability curves etc MIGHT be checked at a set draft, mainly for an unusual cargo and occasionally (mainly academic) masters and mates would work out various silly things like GM but this was the exception rather than the rule! That was all 'deep sea' stuff we just didn't have the time for such 'flippery' (a lot of AHTS mates didn't have the ability for one reason or another! more practical men than academic's I'm afraid). So OK things have probably changed but by how much? in seven years? Ptrobably wrong (I hope I am) but most of the GM stuff etc could have been supplied AFTER the event by shore based experts! Who just could be wrong for various reasons! I hope to God I'm wrong and I wouldn't want to do anyone a mis-service but..............

 

Mr. Walrus Sir,

I would suggest that if that's the way that you guys checked stability maybe you are lucky to be typing in a chat forum today. Just because a vessel's marks are above the water has absolutely nothing to do with the vessel being stable or not. You can have the marks out of the water and still fail stability, even flip the boat. It is simply a matter of where the KG is located relative to the KM. Plus is good, minus is bad, and believe me you can get to minus with the marks showing.

When you say thing like "silly things like GM" and refer that being "deep sea stuff" you are only pointing out that you haven't a clue to what makes a boat float. What kind of a mate's license did you have?

For quite some years AHTS and PSVs have had at a minimum stability manuals with check sheets for the master to use. It is required as a condition of sailing that the master perform a stability check and put the results in the ship's log before sailing. I don't think that this has changed in the past 7 years, but maybe you would like to share with us what was done on the vessels that you were mate on. In years past many of the older vessels had a simple stability curve that showed deck cargo on 1 axis and draft on another axis. As long as the plotted point was below the line you were OK, but as far as I know, this has not been done in many years, at least on the more sophisticated vessels out there.

Now days, most of the more sophisticated vessels have loading monitors, or on board stability programs. Each of these programs is tailor fitted to the particular vessel and the program must be approved by the approving flag authority. As I am familar with ABS as a class society, they actually require a 'loading instrument' [stability loading software] to be fitted as part of class for vessels over 90m in length. This software must be capable of both determining stability and hull strength for any loading condition that the vessel might encounter. In other words they don't want the boat to turn over or break in half, which is a pretty good thing.

 

I have to agree with some of what Walrus says, I have been on many v/ls (AHTS, PSV, AHT) where nohing except drafts have been taken as there is a belief that the vessel is "close enough" to the conditions listed, very dangerous as far as I was concerned, though not once (for a regular run) after working it out did I find the vessel not complying with the requirements.
I have spent a lot of time training junior officers to check the stability, hence making workbooks up (I know they are not approved) as the approved information, check sheets are either complicated, confusing or non-exisitant(check sheets), but they work in accoradnace whith the info and compare well to the official booklets.

Asearch you mentioned the ABS Rules for vessels over 90m, well most of the AHTS, PSV's are less than 90m and if it aint a requirement the owner (in most cases) will not pay the extra for the software. BD was 75.2m LOA.

Just think when a class society approves a stability book where 3 of the 10 conditions do not comply with the requirements, I have serious doubts about their quality control, especially when in the same booklet there is a line that reads something like "as long as the vessel is loaded in compliance with the conditions contained in this booklet the vessel will comply in all respects to the requirements listed below" they cannot have checked the conditions.

What should be done and what is actually done are two very different things. Think about the hours of work / rest, can a 6 and 6 watch system really give you a minimum of 6hours genuine rest, not if you take into account handover, meal times, work outside of watch keeping, keeping your cabin clean and so on.

 

Riggertroy,


I cannot disagree with you when you say that many AHTS/OSV/PSVs do not do what they should. However, if it was me putting my butt on the line, close enough would not be good enough.

Again, I cannot disagree that many stability manuals are ill concieved and hard to use, and unfortunately many navarchs are just too lazy or just don't give a flip to do a good job on the stability manual. Many just do only just enough to get by, but that doesn't necessarily make it good enough, I certainly agree.

And yes, you have a point that if the autostability is not required that many owners won't spring for it. And yes, most of this type vessel is less than 90m and the autostability is not required, however most of the new generation sophisticated vessels are fitted with the autostability today. Just look at the AutoShip web site and see the list of their clients for the AutoLoad software, which was on the BD, as well as all other UT designs.

Obviously there are certain criteria that the regs make you conform to, such as towing, weather, energy, damage, etc. In the case of any vessel that I am involved with, each condition is checked for various loading stages such as 100%, 50%, 10% consumables. We check for maximum deck cargo conditions, maximum mud conditions, various combinations of mud/bulk/deck cargo, etc. We also try to make a simplified spread sheet with and include with manual that automatically does the calcs for the master. On some vessels, we do the autostability, but not all.

I also have seen some pretty bad mistakes not caught by the authorities, and that is pretty concerning for me personally. I have seen it pretty consistent that they get caught up in some picky, not crtitical point that has very little if any impact on the final results, and overlook something as flagrant as incorrect extent of damage, or a totally obvious incorrect KG. But they are human also, and everyone makes mistakes from time to time. I try to make sure that before a calculation set goes out from us that it has been vetted completely and hopefully all errors eliminated.

And I know that certain company men push the crews to a point that they sometime take the shortcuts, however this should not happen. When your life, and the life of all on the vessel that you control, depends on you making the correct decisions, you take the time to make sure that you have done it correctly.

Just say that the reported GM of .23m for the BD was correct. If the master left port with a GM that low, and certainly it would have not been in compliance with the regulations, is that the fault of the designer, the owner, the flag authority, the class society or the master. Fault is simple and lies at the foot of the master. He MUST always operate his vessel in a safe manner. If he ignores reality and says that this is "close enough", then he should NOT be allowed the responsibility of a vessel.

I do not think that the BD sailed with a .23m GM as was stated. I cannot believe that any captain would do something so calous, especially when he had his 14 year old son along for the trip.

 

Yes, but in my opinion that's many times because surveying authorities ask the booklets to be done for their easiness of review, not the captain's comfort. Personally I have had the experience of trying to give the stab booklets a more friendly way of use for the captain, and the booklets were rejected because some (stupid) surveyors said that was not the 'proper' way of presenting the booklet for them to revise.

Totally agree. I've seen stability booklets with colossal mistakes. Presently I'm now working on the stability of a 20 m wooden fishing boat, some 12 years old. I've ascertained the NA who did the original stab booklet took freeboards instead of draughts as there were no draught marks when the boat was launched (!!!). As there was not designer nor authorities proper control during building process, the moulded depth, deck rake and forms of the boat are not those of the designed body lines plan, so floatation gotten by means of the freeboards resulted being more than 50 cm lower than it really was. I have not to tell you what the quality of the whole stab calculations...

What a big, big truth....!
(i,e., upwards related case's stab booklet was authorized by the surveying authorities!)

Well, I have found captains with their son aboard (quite common aboard small fishing vessels) who don't care about the lack of stability of their vessel, even when advised. I've found sometimes this attitude among people with a low degree of formation, but it would be very strange in BD captain's case.

 

Checking draught marks, plus a measurement of the period of balance was and still is how a vessel's stability may be quickly checked by the crew. As period of balance is something a crew 'feels' and quickly gets used to its meaning on the initial stability, many times only the checking of the marks is done. And as marks forward and astern are difficult to reach, just checking the plimsoll disk over the side is all what many crews use to do....
So we should not be tough on the Walrus

 

Ace tell me are you a seaman or one of these 'experts' who sits on his fat backside growing rich off seaman but in reality does bugger all but tell everybody how it should be done? I've already fell out with you once lets not go there again shall we?

There are a lot of things which 'should be done' but arn't (like sailing below your marks, yes I've done that too! funnily enough it was a Norwegian vessel (AHTS) which we had taken over which could NOT load both bulk cargo and deck cargo! We quickly had the stability books recalculated and found that they were incorrect! But whilst waiting we had a job to do and families to feed (maybe mummy feeds you regardless eh ace!), no we wern't proud and yes we were scared (more of the authorities than anything else! it was obviously wrong but.....) And no I'll not be saying who or where, but it happened!

 

Oh and Ace as your such a good boy who complies with the law all the time presuming that you drive how many times have you 'jumped' a red light at two in the morning with nothing else for miles around! Sensible, yes! breaking the law, yes! And No I never have!!! Guillermo you can probably guess why!

 

I think that what went horribly wrong is that the transfer of ballast to the starboard side was, instead, mistakenly added to the port side. If you read the court testimony the list starts off as a slight port list and right before they capsized the vessel was making "large movements to port" and the person transferring ballast stated that they were going to "add all available ballast to the starboard side". I would be very interested to see what the ballast control panel on the bridge looked like and see how easy it would be to get confused.

There is no way the vessel should have been knocked over 90 degrees by the shifting of 200-300 tons to the port outside pin. The only way I can visualize this happening is if the ballast was shifted from the starboard side to the port side. Couple this, with the removal of chain from the starboard locker, and, possibly, the flume tanks being used, and it equals a disaster.

I sounds like the classic "Kodiak II" situation where they had a deckload of chain slide from the unballasted side of the vessel to the fully ballasted side.

Whoever was tranferring ballast should have only transferred enough to counter the 5000' or 3" anchor chain that was removed from the vessel. (Approx. 1000 bbls?)

 

Chuck,
welcome to these forums.
Transfering ballast to the wrong side would have been a gross mistake indeed, as well as carrying on anchor handling operations with Flume tanks on.
But there must be a really important cause for this very strange accident, because none of the normal situations (even with a load of 330 tonnes at the pins) seem enough to capsize the vessel. Still confusing to me. And available witness testimonies only add further confusion.

How many tonnes of ballast water you estimate could be pumped from one side to the other in the BD? (Info on the vessel states 1650 m3 of total ballast water, but I asume part of those are also for trim tanks) Where are those ballast tanks located, double bottom or sides? I cannot distinguish them at the BD leaflet I downloaded from Bourbon site.

All: Witness statement says average draught was 6.5 mts when leaving Lerwick, this is, full load as per BD info. Would this suppose the full 800 tons of deck cargo were aboard? Or, are there several full load conditions to be considered for this kind of vessels? Which ones are they?

Cheers

 

Cappy Chuck,

Welcome aboard. Your two cents' worth is a welcome addition, coming from an experienced AHTS skipper.

This particular fatal accident is highly significant for the same reasons it has generated such deeply passionate feelings among some of our fellow posters. A nearly new ship, designed, built, and operated by companies with well earned reputations for quality and integrity, capsizes catastrophically and fatally during operations that are common, if not routine. The stakes are enormous, because the of the reputations of the companies involved, and men with similar training and experience are putting to sea in ships of similar design, built in similar yards, and conducting similar operations every day.

From comments in this thread, it is obvious that economic pressures, exacerbated by beauraucratic inefficiency, result too often in shortcuts in design and/or operations which compromise stability and/or safety.

Seamen (including mates and captains) and designers are equally aware of their professional training and skills, and resent criticism perceived to come from anyone who doesn't share their background. Walrus Mike, in a complaint echoed by sailors since ancient times, lumped designers in with all the shoreside folks who exercise so much control over ships at sea; folks whom sailors resent because they aren't out in the storms getting the job done. Acesearch, as any good designer will be, is angered that shortcuts are taken by seamen who are under pressure from their own companies, as well as rig owners and operators, to accomplish more with less, don't fall behind schedule, and, above all else, don't cause the company to lose revenue or incur financial penalties.

Unfortunately, life is often more gray than black and white. A master who operates outside optimal stability conditions is wrong, but a master who cancels an operation because changing conditions have hit the line between safety and danger can, as Walrus pointed out, be removed summarily. Such a skipper may feel that he is protecting his crew better by continuing, rather than by cancelling and possibly being replaced by a skipper more willing to continue operations in boderline conditions.

The real common enemy of both designers and seamen are the companies and their investors who demand maximum short term profits above every other consideration.

 

Safewalrus,

One thing I learned a long time ago, was that I was ususally much better off keeping my mouth shut about things that I did not know anything about. You obviously did not learn that very valuable lesson. As long as you add constructive thoughts to this discussion I will respect them. When you add such crap as you did before, why should you not expect to be confronted? Whether I am a seaman or not, adds absolutely nothing to this discussion. Whether I have run a stop light or not adds absolutely nothing to this discussion. I design this type of vessel. I am qualified to discuss ALL aspects of this situation. I have added constructive comments. That is what adds to this discussion.

It's always interesting dealing with people like you on chat boards. They think that they can attack people that have valid considerations because of their bully tactics, but then when someone confronts them with facts they then resort to trying to intemidate.

Well Mate, that doesn't work with me. You put a stupid post up and I called you on it. If you operated the way you posted, maybe that's why you haven't been in the business for 7 years and you should change your screen name to UNsafewalrus.

I will say that in one of you last posts you did state a credible situation that is relevant. I realize and noted in my previous posts that not all naval architects and designers do the job they should do. This results in situations such as happened to you on the Norwegian vessel. As a naval architect, I would certainly like to think that everything that can be done to make each vessel perfect is done, but that would be dreaming because I know it doesn't get done. I like to think that what I and my group do is as best as it can be, and always correct, but I know that there is always room to improve. We do always make a point of listening to complaints and recommendations from the operators, and always make every effort to give them everything that they need to do their job, which I certainly know is not easy.

So now you've had you say. I've had my say. Let's leave it at that and discuss the topic at hand with constructive comments.

 

Chuck

Good point cap'n, a very good point! Flume tanks have their uses but at certain times are either best left full or empty, not that I've used them much, and throwing all the ballast on the wrong side would also cause problems. Too much technical stuff for a very busy man springs to mind - as You at least are aware the cap'n has a LOT to do during an Anchor Job, ballasting as well gives him more to do and thus more room for mistake - glad I don't play that game anymore it's got too technical (no fun)! OK we still managed to die in the old days, but we did it a lot more simpler, and only normally did it one or two at a time!