200710 Collision with dredger

A coastal tanker completed discharge in the forenoon and was being piloted out in a fog-bound harbour channel. The bridge team comprised of just the master, and two harbour pilots. The chief engineer was performing the helmsman's duties and all the three deck officers along with the ratings were manning the forward and after mooring stations, apparently a common practice on this small vessel.

A tug assisted the unberthing by pushing on the inshore (port) bow, and was then ordered to drop astern and escort the vessel out. With the engine going ahead and a starboard rudder, the tanker shaped a course for mid-channel.

While one pilot had the con, the other pilot was monitoring the ship's progress on his portable D-GPS receiver. No systematic radar watch was established.

A dredger was clearing a shoal, close off the next berth downstream, between the dock wall and the centre of the fairway. It was secured to the shore and a pontoon was tied up on the offshore side of the dredger.

With the ship gathering headway, it was observed that the head was swinging very quickly to starboard, and accordingly, hard port rudder was applied. At this time both the chief pilot and the master were reportedly on the bridge wing.

Within a couple of minutes, with the ship's head now swinging to port, the dredger suddenly came into view right ahead at very close range. The port anchor was let go and engine rung full astern, but despite these emergency actions, the bow of the vessel collided with both the dredger and the pontoon alongside.

The tanker's bulbous bow sustained a 30mm deep indentation over an area of about half a square metre. The hulls of the dredger and the pontoon were damaged slightly. No personal injury resulted, although a crew member of the dredger jumped into the water before the impact and was rescued promptly.

After ensuring that the dredger and the pontoon were not in any danger, the tanker was escorted to a berth for casualty investigation and survey.

Root cause/contributory factors
Poor bridge team management;
Thick fog;
Chief engineer acting as helmsman without adequate qualifications for this task;
Note: Inexperience, fatigue, language problems and alcohol played no role in this incident.

Editor's note: The report does not offer any explanation of several principal errors in bridge team management:

The failure to keep an effective radar lookout; in the absence of an officer of the watch, the master should have been monitoring the radar;
The absence of a deck officer, and most alarmingly, a lookout, on the bridge, considering that the ship had a total complement of 14; and was underway in thick fog;
Whether the bridge team was aware of the presence of the dredging operation, it is certainly inconceivable that the two harbour pilots were unaware of this activity just off the adjoining berth. One of the future corrective actions mentioned was to ensure that agents provide the master with local navigation warnings.