Beluga Revolution

Primary navigation was by paper charts, but only small scale in use. Passage planning did not notice proximity of course to Tench Island. Monitoring of passage carried out on ECS - only fitted with Raster charts, consequently no look ahead or anti-grounding alarms generated.

Although ECDIS was fitted on the bridge, this was only used as an ECS as the primary navigation was using paper charts. In addition, only raster charts were loaded on the ECS. The passage had been planned roughly on the ECS and then finalised on paper charts two weeks later. During this planning stage, it was not noticed that the planned route passed 1 nautical mile from Tench Island. A larger scale chart was available for the area, but not used. The position of Tench Island was 2.3 miles from the position charted on the chart in use. Ship positions were plotted every two hours and due to low cloud, the island was not noticed on radar, and, o the watchkeepers were not expecting to encounter an island.

Download BSU Investigation report:

Beluga Revolution April 2010 (3.5MB)