In route planning, misconceptions often result in fatal accidents. A detailed passage plan with viable substance added by the shipowner according to internationally acknowledged criteria helps pilot and master.
Voyage and passage planning has been an important part of seamanship since centuries. It is fascinating to see the thoroughly[ds_preview] prepared voyages from James Cook. Cook measures should be seen as voyage and not as passage planning. The difference between voyage and passage planning has been explained in »Sprache und Kommunikation in der Schifffahrt« (Diestel, HANSA 3/2011). It is worthwhile to repeat the definition of both expressions found in the »Random House Dictionary«: Voyage – a course of travel or passage, esp. a long journey by water to a distant place. Passage – a voyage by water or air from one point to another.
When these expressions were translated and defined, the German maritime English expert Prof. Dr. Peter Trenkner was consulted. Shipping has great problems with these and other (e. g. con) expressions since the IMO is not using them in an unmistakable way. Even the Nautical Institute in London seems to have difficulties to find experts to confirm these definitions or to offer different explanations after having been sent the above mentioned article (»Language and communication in shipping«).
Over centuries sailors developed sound traditions concerning passage planning without international conventions. In recent years the author had to recognize that these traditions have been lost because of drastic changes in the structure of the shipping companies and the lost homogeneity of the crews. Therefore international conventions have become more important all the time. Unfortunately their definitions are inadequate and they are very rarely found on the bridge of vessels.
International conventions
The following conventions govern the requirements of passage planning:
• IMO Resolution A.893(21), adopted on 25 November 1999: Guidelines for Voyage Planning
• IMO Resolution A.999(25), adopted on 29 November 2007: Guidelines on Voyage Planning for Passenger Ships Operating in Remote Areas
• SOLAS, Chapter V: Safety of navigation, Regulation 34
• STCW, Section A-VIII/2: Watchkeeping arrangements and principles to be observed
Accidents due to deficiencies in passage planning
Two accidents of DSR-Lines vessels which happened before the IMO Resolutions were adopted show that the masters not always adhered to the traditional ideas. The bulker »Aue« left the road of Kiel on 25 February 1971 without pilot to proceed to Rostock. This decision of the master was acceptable since he was not required to take a pilot and he knew the fairway. But he tried it without a thorough passage plan (PP) since he entered only a course enabling him to leave the road into the chart and he did not carry out or request the necessary navigation etc.
The coaster »Capella« of Rostock sank on 3 January 1976 with the whole crew near Borkum when trying to enter the Westerems in spite of severe storm with Bft. 12 from WNW – the most dangerous direction. If the master had continuously evaluated the hydro-meteorological conditions including the decreasing water depth which lead to an increasing height and steepness of the waves and a murderous ground sea in his passage planning, he would have refrained from entering the Westerems.
The following examples proof that the introduction of the IMO Resolutions did not change the situation. After the author took over the position of DPA (Designated Person Ashore) at Alpha Ship, Bremen, in 1999 he had to investigate a number of sea accidents. Vessels of the company grounded a number of times in the fairway of Itajai and in the Rio de la Plata. He established that the missing calculation of the under-keel clearance (UKC) was the main cause.
The master of the »Tasman Spirit« made the same mistake when he tried to enter Karachi in July 2003. The result was the grounding and total loss of the vessel as well as a massive oil pollution. For the masters of two Alpha Ship vessels, calling at the same time at Karachi, it was very difficult to carry out the calculation of UKC requested by the company since the authorities offered no reliable figures for the controlling depth in the fairway. In a report concerning the grounding the Merchant Navy Association of Pakistan expressed the opinion that the official water depth of 12.2 m in the fairway was wrong and that 9.5 m would be more realistic. After Captain Eckhard Brandt had been requested to inquire for the controlling depth, he recommended 10.25 m. This figure was then used for the calculations of the UKC of the »Tasman Spirit« and also by the two masters to establish the minimum UKC of 0.7 m laid down by the author in the name of the company. The following conservative calculation shows that the master of the »Tasman Spirit« had almost no chance to prevent the grounding of his vessel when entering the port of Karachi even during high water.
The sea accident of the »Tasman Spirit« did not change much, there are still groundings because of missing or wrong calculations of UKC. In January 2007 the Indian tanker »Desh Rakshak« grounded at Melbourne. The Australian Transport Safety Bureaus (ATSB) established that neither the crew nor the pilot took the squat of the vessel into account.
The tanker »Sea Empress« grounded in February 1996 when entering Milford Haven. In connection with the passage planning onboard the investigation of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) recognized the following mistakes:
• The master prepared a PP according to the IMO Resolution and to the manual of his company. In spite of the request of his company he did not discuss the passage plan with the pilot.
• The passage plan did fulfill the requirements of a safe entering of the port. Unfortunately the master did not adhere to his own plan. If he had done so, there would have been no sea accident.
• The pilot did not explain his PP to the master. When MAIB asked the pilot why he did not do it, he answered: »That is unusual.«
Before leaving Gladstone the second officer of the »Shen Neng 1« put a course for the bulker into the chart which complied with the Australian regulations for the passage of the Great Barrier Reef which the pilot noticed. After leaving the port the second officer proposed to the master a change of the course which would reduce the distance by nearly 2 NM. The master agreed. The officer entered the course into the chart but did not change the entries in the GPS unit. The second officer had set the cross track error alarm for three cables. When this alarm sounded the officer just acknowledged the alarm. When handing over the watch to the chief mate he informed him about the course change and that the changes had not been entered into the GPS unit. The chief mate confirmed the changes. He did not check the handed over position, and he did also not fix a position at 16:30 hrs lt as intended. At 17:05 hrs lt the vessel stranded on Douglas Shoal.
Not only the course of the »Shen Neng 1« was criticized. The authorities of Gibraltar also investigated the collision of the »New Flame« and of the »Torm Gertrud« and did the same with the courses of both vessels. They came to the conclusion that the strong traffic, known to both masters, should have lead them to shape a course in accordance with the traffic to have more space for manoeuvring.
The container vessel »Rena« grounded on 5 October 2011 on Astrolabe Reef. The preliminary report of the Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) of New Zealand to the total loss of the vessel reveals the following facts:
• The PP prepared by the second officer was according to the requirements of the passage.
• The way the master sailed the container vessel around the Mahia Peninsula made it obvious that he and the officers did not understand the objectives and principles of passage planning. »Rena«’s course was changed to reduce the distance by cutting corners. At no time the officers adhered to the laid down course.
TAIC (2.2.6.) used the following words to characterise the leadership of the master: »At noon on 4 October the second mate took over the bridge watch from the third mate. The master returned to the bridge shortly afterwards and told the second mate to proceed on the inshore side of the course lines plotted on the chart that showed the PP around Mahia Peninsula. He said this in order to assess the strength and location of any unfavorable current (currents were known to flow generally in a southward direction in this area). The master also instructed the second mate to navigate the ›Rena‹ either side of the course lines on the chart while steaming up the east coast in search of the least unfavorable current. The master did not tell him how far from the planned course he could deviate.«
• The master handed over duties and tasks he was responsible for to his officers. They should have been solved in the process of passage planning in the first place. After the PP had been prepared the officers on watch had to adhere to the course laid down and inform the master when observing changes in the conditions and facts on which the PP was based. This superficial and undisciplined style of seamanship was repeated when the »Rena« approached Tauranga. After a conversation on the phone with the master the second officer changed the course in direction to the Astrolabe Reef to reduce the distance to be sailed. This change should never have been carried out in the first place and in the second any change the master should have done himself. At least he should have checked the changes and then sanctioned them.
Here is no space to evaluate the leadership of the master or other shortcomings. But missing leadership was also the reason for deficiencies in passage planning leading to a dangerous situation for a vessel visited by me when I was Training-Master. When the vessel left a port near Hong Kong on the way to the Philippines the master knew that a typhoon would cross that country and move into the South China Sea. His easterly course created the danger his vessel would end up in the dangerous semi-circle of the typhoon. Another course change into south-easter-
ly direction increased this danger. The typhoon passed the vessel in a distance of 45 NM causing fortunately only slight damages to the vessel and cargo.
The cruise vessel »Van Gogh« grounded on 23.02.2008 when leaving Devonport, Tasmania. ATSB wrote in its report: »Passage planning – The importance of having a PP for pilotage cannot be over-emphasised. Without a proper and functional PP there can be no shared mental model, no challenge and response opportunities, no real knowledge and understanding of roles and responsibilities of the bridge team members and no defined limits.
Important though, it should be understood that having a PP which is not followed is just as ineffective as not having a plan in the first place. During the pre-departure briefing, the pilot and the master agreed that the master would manoeuvre the ship off the berth and then, when it was safely positioned in the swing basin, the pilot would take over the command and take the ship to sea. As part of the departure plan, the pilot provided the master and bridge team with a section of the Devonport chart on which he had drawn his intended route off the berth into the swing basin and from there to sea. Once the briefing had concluded, the master and pilot signed off on the plan, indicating that they both agreed with it. The bridge team now had a shared mental model of how the outward pilotage should proceed.«
This procedure of the master and the pilot is exemplary. Unfortunately the PP of the master did not mention the insufficient manoeuvring qualities of his vessel. How the expression pilot would take over the command should be judged as it was explained in HANSA 3/2011.
This paper is concentrating on a small number of remarkable sea accidents. But during the investigation of nearly all groundings mistakes and shortcomings of passage planning are obvious. To the same conclusion the P & I Clubs are coming (IG P & I, Pilotage Sub-committee-Report on pilot error related claims over 100,000 $).
Mistakes and shortcomings
The specified examples show some fundamental shortcomings of passage planning. During audits and training sessions as onboard additionally the following ones were noticed:
• Calculations of UKC are not being carried out. On most vessels there is not even a squat table. On one vessel the second officer copied the example of a squat table from »Brown’s Nautical Almanac« and used it unchanged for the vessel.
• Danger areas (no-go-areas) are very seldom defined.
• The courses changes in narrow fairways or rivers were not supported by wheel- over points or points of no return. The courses in such demanding sea areas without such support are difficult to execute and more often not adhered to.
• Unfortunately many vessels visited were not equipped with ECDIS. But on vessels equipped with this device it was not or insufficiently used for passage planning.
• Rules for the use of navigation equipment in difficult and dangerous areas especially under pilotage were not laid down.
• Since most PP were not more than a waypoint list a briefing of the officers was not necessary. But even on those vessels with an excellent PP (»Metula« and »Sea Empress«) this was not discussed. De-briefing even after (difficult) passages was not considered.
• Important navigational procedures to be carried out, e.g. for the use of the equipment etc. should be part of the standing orders of the master or be part of the PP.
• Usually local rules and regulations for narrow fairways, rivers and canals are unknown and therefore not part of the PP.
Procedures of owners and managers
The first duty of ship operators is to prepare a procedure for PP adhering to IMO Resolution, SOLAS and STCW. Quite a number of companies solved this task. Other companies just repeated the slogans like appraisal, planning, execution, monitoring without adding substance. The form provided to prepare the PP is often not more than only a waypoint list. In contrast to this there are very thorough and very extensive forms like the one for a PP of former Beluga Shipping. At Alpha Ship and for two other companies following proposals were made:
• Creating a short and concise procedure.
• Creating a form for the PP complying with the procedure, which allowed to include all requirements for the trading area of the vessel with a high degree of flexibility.
• To be able to keep these two papers short and concise a working instruction with necessary definitions, explanations etc. to support the master and the officers should be included in the manual. The procedure and the form have to request the master to collect and analyse the necessary data as traffic, hydro-meteorological conditions/factors, quality of the sea charts, requirements of local rules and regulations. Both have also to request the development of measures to prevent possible dangers affecting the vessel adversely. The master has therefore to include in his PP the necessary arrangements for bridge resource management, the navigation of the vessel and how the equipment on the bridge is to be used by the bridge team including the pilot.
Already before the case of the »Hill Harmony« made headlines in the maritime media, the requirement was laid down in the procedure of Alpha Ship that the master had to explain his reasons when not following the recommendation of weather routing. The reason for this measure was the behaviour of a colleague who did not follow the recommendations without any acceptable reason. The well-known and for the company important charterer lost 1.5 days without withholding the charter for this time or requesting the company to pay for bunker unnec-
essarily used. The master was replaced in the next port.
The House of Lords articulated the following principle in connection with the »Hill Harmony« in December 2000: »Where a ship is chartered on terms that require the master to prosecute voyages with the utmost despatch and to follow the orders of the charterers as to the employment of the ship, the ship is bound to obey charterers’ orders regarding the route to be followed, unless owners can show sound reasons – such as danger to the ship – for following a different course.«
Step by step the author introduced the following requirements into the procedure and form of Alpha Ship:
When point eight was added to the procedure, pilots were opposing this request. After a short time they noticed the determination of the company and accepted the request of Alpha Ship.
Conclusions
A sound PP is the most important tool to prepare the passage from berth to berth. The sea accidents mentioned show how big the influence of a PP is to attain a safe passage. Such a PP prevents that decisions have to be taken without a thorough evaluation of all facts; the plan should prevent decisions are taken in disregard of necessary measures for a safe passage.
Changes to the PP should only be necessary when unknown and unforeseeable facts are appearing and make an update necessary. The last information of the Italian authorities to the grounding of the cruise ship »Costa Concordia« show once again passage planning and adherence to the PP was not according to the rules of good seamanship.
Author:
Hans-Hermann Diestel Captain
Hans-Hermann Diestel
