The grounding of the cargo ship. MV Fri Ocean on 14th June this year [2013] is the subject of a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch published on 6th December.
This was the event – which left Fri Ocean as, in the terms used by the MAIB, a ‘serious marine casualty’ and which saw the crew of Tobermory Lifeboat receive an RNLI commendation for the 31 hour shout it took to get the boat refloated and safely down the Sound of Mull to a handover to Oban Lifeboat.
At the time there was confusion as to whether or not the master of the vessel had reported the grounding [which happened at 03.22] to coastguard to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The MAIB report confirms that he did not; and that it was a member of the public on shore who saw the grounded ship and reported it to Stornoway Coastguard [at 07.10] which in turn tasked Tobermory Lifeboat to the casualty.
The report is critical of the Master, a well qualified 50 year old Russian who had failed to make a series of dispositions that ought to have averted the grounding. These include:
- not managing efficiently the duties of the crew of the minimum manned [within regulations] vessel in order to enable night watch lookouts to be deployed;
- dispensing with an AB on lookout duty as well as the Officer on Watch during the night passage from Corpach at Fort William, through the Corran Narrows in Loch Linnhe and west through the Sound of Mull en route for Varberg in Sweden;
- failing to consider fatigue management in the case of the Second Officer, who, on watch alone and after two days of sleep disruption and prolonged working hours, fell fast asleep on watch from 0000 to 0400 that night, with the actual grounding happening at 0322;
- apparently failing to deploy the BNWAS [Bridge Navigation Watch Alarm System] which, not then mandatory, had been fitted to the Fri Ocean in anticipation that such a device would shortly be required. This system automatically alarms should an officer on watch on the bridge fall asleep;
- failing no notify the national coastal authority of the grounding, when such notification is required both to protect lives and to allow the national authority to make timely arrangements to prevent marine pollution.
The MAIB report is lucid about the collection of circumstances which saw the Second Officer fall asleep.
He had had two days of disrupted rest and pr0longed working hours in a call at Belfast to unload cargo before a passage in ballast to Corpach where again his rest was disrupted and he worked for a prolonged period on duties associated with loading a timber products cargo for Varberg.
- He was on a four hour watch alone from midnight onwards.
- The temperature on the bridge was quite warm – 17 C.
- Sea and weather conditions were calm.
- The ergonomic competence of the bridge arrangements required little movement from him – he could do most of what was required of him from his chair.
- The navigation systems used, with alarms set to alert him to any course deviation [the vessel was on autopilot] and to waypoint course adjustments, were undemanding.
While, despite his broken rest and longer working hours, the Second Officer arrived on the bridge at 23.55 to relieve the Master, he felt perfectly able to stand his watch – nevertheless, left alone there with little stimulation , he fell asleep after making a course change at 02.56.
At one point he had gone out on to the Starboard bridge for some frsh air and when he came back inside, he had pinned the door to that bridge open, obviously to try to keep himself awake in his port side chair.
The two navigational alarms were on a computer and insufficiently loud to wake him up. One of these recorded a missed waypoint course change, with the ship then holding her unchanged course for just over 2½ miles at about 10.5 knots, until the second officer then woke up.
The report says that: ‘Sensing the close proximity of land, the second officer immediately moved the engine control to neutral, and then full astern, before Fri Ocean grounded at 0322′.
The noise and vibration of the grounding woke the Master from his allocated rest period. He had the rescue boat lowered and made an inspection of the ship from the water. At first there was no water ingress but a damaged weld from a previous repair gave way. The MAIB report ‘The vessel’s bow shell plating and frames were damaged, which resulted in flooding to the bow thruster room. The crew carried out a temporary repair’.
Tobermory Lifeboat was then on station – on their 31 hour shout [the longest ever] whose details were reported here.
The recommendations of the report are all indisputably well founded and practical.
They centre on the imperative for a lookout with the Officer on Watch at night – which the MAIB have seen from experience is a valuable guard against the watch officer falling asleep.
The recommendations also underline the imperative of fatigue management, saying that the ship’s master ‘should have felt empowered to stop the ship to allow his crew to receive the rest they needed.’
The issue here is that a Master without, as the report diplomatically says ‘the benefit of unequivocal support from the company’ will ‘always find this a difficult decision to make’.
The report makes interesting reading, with the narrative of its methodical investigation bringing alive the working life of the ship – and her like. Lookouts are clearly indispensable.
