Bourbon Dolphin capsizes

To define luck would not be an easy task. I would say it is impossible. I have been in a few situations where a multiple of circumstances has led to a hazard developing rapidly and only human intervention and a fortunate change in one or other of the circumstances has prevented a catastrophe.

We should always look for hazards before we begin any task and we should always try and prevent their effects on our operation.

When it all goes to plan and the job runs smoothly we accept the fact, and the T-shirts, that our good preparation has led to a good performance.
Occasionally, two or three things will happen simultaneously that makes all our preparation worthless, and we have to struggle to regain control and if we are lucky we will find a way out or one of the negative circumstances will change again.

We can say that bad luck got us into the situation and good luck got us back out. We could also blame our preparation and say that we should have considered more what-if scenarios, but there are hidden hazards that can only become hazards when affected by sometimes two other set of hazards. You would need a computer brain to work them all out in advance.

The time difference between good and bad luck can be the blink of an eye. There is a saying that we make our own luck and that is very true, but we are also sometimes the victims of circumstances.

I think, however, it is right never to think of luck as a factor that can be equated.

 

Luck, good or bad is extremely hard to quantify and as Murdo states should not be considered a factor in the equation! Yes there are "Lucky" masters/skippers as ther are "unlucky" ones too! But lets us examine that "luck" a little closer? What constitutes this 'luck' thing? surely attitude, knowledge, competance, foresight, commitment and a little communication with others - where have I heard that before? Some people naturally have it others do not!! for some it seems easy for others it's sheer hard work! and it shows!!

Luck is simply a term for an unquatified amount of doing it right! And whilst it is stated and used, it cannot be used in the final equation because of this variance!! But it can and does happen -

 

Guillermo as we know one of the problems with fishermen is that they are, how do I put it? simple souls! Alot do not understand all this academic stuff about stability (nor do they want to a lot of the time) and for a lot of them why should they? after all going a few miles offshore in a ten metre boat is slightly different to a sixty metre vessel going some 500 mile out for a couple of months! And unfortunately the majority of fishermen are those that do go out in ten metre boats (or smaller). In slack periods these self same fishermen go to sea on merchant ships etc and make some of the best seamen in the fleet! That is their level and that is what they want to do! In fact some of the best seamen when I was in the North sea (some 17 years mostly as mate) were such Portugese (and that Celtic State just above them!) fishermen!! Give them pages on pages of calculations and they will look at you as if your an idiot, but give them a simple one to two page system and tell them that following it will save their lives and they will follow it!

The main thing they want to do is get fish and get back to the family -not do all sorts of technical stuff that they do not understand! that's for 'egg heads' in Universities! the sooner the 'egg heads' realise this the better, for everybody unfortunately that won't show how clever they think they are! I fear you have an uphill struggle to get them to do otherwise, well done to you for trying but as I said I fear it will be hard work! They are not on the same planet most of them!!

 

Thank you for your thoughts. I too was wondering whether luck should be part of the formula. It is definitely an important factor in whether a person survives or not. However, upon reflection, I decided that it should not be included for the following reasons:

1. Another term for good 'luck' is probability of success, and lucky is a relatively high probability of success. Probability is tied up in safety at two levels: firstly at the level of likelihood of exposure to the hazard and secondly in the context of the magnitude of consequences that might arise from exposure to the hazard. But probability is really already an essential element of the meaning of the word safety itself because when we say safey, we really mean 'relative safety' rather than 'absolute safety'. We are not guaranteeing absolute safety. Rather we are increasing the probability of survival by providing increased 'relative safety', i.e. improving the chances of good luck. So to that extent 'luck' is already accounted for in the relative nature of safety.

2. So far, our models for vessel safety does not explicitly consider probability in a quantitative sense, though there is some implicit reference within the content prescriptive clauses describing requirements. Even if you look at the so-called probabilistic method for damage stability, you will find that it is highly simplistic and limited in its probabilistic context.

3. A ten-year scientific study into the nature of luck has revealed that, to a large extent, people make their own good and bad fortune. This was the finding in an article published in the Skeptical inquirer May/June 2003 called The Luck Factor by Richard Wiseman (copy attached). He suggests that lucky people create their own luck by applying four basic principles

a) They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities;
b) They make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition;
c) They create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive epectations; and
d) They adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good luck.

There are probably similar principles that can be associated with people who tend to experience bad luck, though they may not be simply the opposites of what is listed above. I would expect that bad luck may be associated with attitudes and other factors that inhibit understanding, foresight, communication, competence and/or commitment (UFCCC). By the same token, it is worth thinking how the basic principles a) to d) above might be enhancing UFCCC.

So at this stage, I probably would not recommend including luck in the formula.

Best regards
Mori

 

From my point of view, the last one of those four is the most important one for us, ordinary people: the capacity of turning 'bad luck' into 'good luck' in the long term.

We have a saying in Spain about this: "El que resiste, gana" (the one who is resilient, wins).

(Note: that's the meaning of the name Guillermo -William )

Cheers.

 

Thank you! That states perfectly what I have been trying to quantify when discussing safety. As usual you are able to take a difficult concept and break it down into terms I can easily grasp.

--Chuck

 

Way back in officer training, our leadership instructor related the (probably apocryphal) story that the one question Fredrick the Great asked about at potential General was: "Is he lucky?" Meaning, of course, does he have the attributes described above.

As an aside, the same instructor said (in jest) that Fredrick divided his officers into four classes with regard to intelligence (smart or stupid) and temperament (energetic or lazy). Smart and energetic became staff officers, always digging and scheming; smart and lazy became commanders, cool under fire; stupid and lazy became subordinates, inert until given an order; and the fourth class was taken out and shot

Cheers,

Earl

 

Quite a good article on the incident can be found here
http://www.shipsandoil.com/Features/The Bourbon Dolphin Accident.htm

All the best
Nigel

 

Nice article, Nigel, thanks.
From there:

"The Commission discovered that the ship had had a previous incident where it had taken a serious list when an anchor had moved on the deck, but that this had not been reported. It discovered that the Stability Book, which, although it was supposed to be readily accessible to the master, extended to more than 500 pages, only conformed with the stability criteria because a smaller winch than that installed was used, and the work wire was retained between the inner towing pins, an impossible situation. The Stability Book also failed to provide instructions on the use of the stability tanks, which was prohibited during anchor-handling, although the experts determined that in fact the stability tanks had been in use. The examples of stability conditions in the book also required more than 500 tonnes of fuel to be carried at all times, limiting the theoretical operating period for the ship to a few days. The master who had been relieved on at the crew change testified that on two occasions he had requested clarification on stability from his company, but that none had been forthcoming. The Stability Book, despite its defects had been approved by the Norwegian Maritime Directorate."

Unbelievable.

Cheers.

 

Well that's OK then - it had Official Sanction! and if, like most such Offices, it is mainly composed of unknown Civil Servants, what Seafarers there are on the committee being from a Deep Sea Discipline, never having been on a AHTS, not even in Dock and would have little practical knowledge, or more importantly, say on the whole damn thing!!

 

I wonder if it is like the stability booklet on my vessel. To use this you are expected to sound the innage of each tank aboard the vessel. When you look at the tankage on my vessel there are over 32 seperate tanks to be sounded. This, of course, is not possible to do every time that a cargo is loaded or discharged (think 'offshore').

The best solution I was able to come up with was to create an excel spreadsheet that duplicates the stability booklet with the best guesses I can input for what the actual tank conditions are. I am, for the record, never going to actually sound the sewage tank to see exactly how much poo is aboard.
--Chuck

 

Chuck I guess that one reads half full unless you have rig bigwigs as passengers - then its full!

 

I did the same sort of thing, excel spreadsheet, worked out the worst possible condition for tanks that could not be sounded, best estimate (erring on the side of caution) for the rest.
Also when time permitted I would work out a correction factor for the lightship and give it a high CG.
Mind you an ABS surveyor told me my spreadsheet was not "approved" and I could not use it, you can guess my reaction to that.

 

Back in my Army days I commanded a mortar unit for a while. I had some excellent gunners who had developed some techniques for aiming that weren't "approved", but resulted in significant improvements in accuracy. During our unit combat readiness evaluation, we set a new record for accuracy of fire. My own leadership rating was reduced by a few points, however, for allowing my gunners to use "unapproved" methods for laying in the gun tubes. I questioned the "down" rating, since we scored higher than any unit in all of Europe. I was told that a good officer would not allow his men to use unapproved methods, regardless of how well they might work. Lesson: do what it takes to get the job done and keep your men safe ... just don't get caught by the REMFs.

 

"The Norwegian Maritime Directorate are to produce a set of Anchor Handling Regulations at the end of October which incorporate the lessons learnt from the Bourbon Dolphin accident. It was reported that the Norwegian Maritime Directorate had been holding meetings with the oil companies, with Class, with the OLF and with ship designers in order to get feedback on the new requirements. It was likely that some of the new requirements may be fairly extensive in their application and on future working practices. For instance, it was noted that there may be a prohibition on tandem anchor handling."
(Marine safety Forum)

Cheers.