Heavy weather encounter - The Satori

A U.S. Coast Guard HH-3F Pelican 

In my post Parametric Rolling of a Car Carrier in Head Sea. I wrote that hidden  flaws,   are more  likely to be revealed in heavy weather. An example is the car ship Figaro - Inadvertent Release of CO 2 - in that case heavy weather was the trigger that casued the unintended release of CO2.

Another, less obvious example is the case of the Sailing vessel Satori  which was the sailing vessel in both the book and movie The Perfect Storm.

The Satori is: 

a short masted, heavy displacement rig. She weighs 11 tons and is designed for heavy seas. Eleven stays keep the forty foot mast secure. When the boat was built Ray requested heavy rigging to be certain that Satori could handle more severe storms.

When the owner and captain of the Satori, Ray Leonard, hove to in 40 kt winds and 30 ft seas he felt confident that his vessel was well within its limits but was unexpectedly  forced to abandon his vessel. Leonard's confidence in his vessel was not misplaced, the Satori was later recovered with little damage.   The path of failure  was not the vessel but the crew: From the story: He (the captain)  was unable to convince the crew that this motion was uncomfortable but not dangerous.

This second knockdown put the crew into a heightened state of panic. They began to insist that they call the Coast Guard for a rescue. Karen believed that the boat was going to break up any minute. The captain explained that there was no need for a rescue and that Satori had been through this before and would ride out this storm. At this point, Susan and Karen were not listening and kept insisting that they wanted to call. Ray agreed to let them call,

The Coast Guard required Capt Leonard to abandon his vessel and sent a HH-3F helicopter from Elizabeth City, N.C.  Rescue swimmer   Dave Moore went into the 30 ft seas and pulled the captain and two crew out of the water.

It is not only the vessel that encounters heavy weather, it is the vessel, crew and cargo. Operating vessels, and their crews, near limits increases risks and chances of failure, - but the path of failure may not be the one  expected.

K.C.
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The  son of Ray Leonard, posted a rebuttal to the book The Perfect Storm.

LORAN-C Shut down - Not Prudent Seamanship

 Towmasters has a good post regarding the shutdown of Loran C. - Lots of Eggs, One Basket Loran-C Signal Shut Down.

Various safety organizations have pounded into mariner's heads now for years various versions of the message "Safety First".   Most senior  mariners by now have internalized safety concepts such as the error chain - in my post Error Chains and Swiss Cheese  I wrote that identifying weak points in safety systems was  basic seamanship.

So,  the Coast Guard is shutting down Loran C and we are now going to depend entirely upon GPS, a system that relies upon satellites spinning around in outer space? Complex systems fail in unexpected ways. A big whiskey tango foxtrot on that one.

K.C.

Pirates Favor Unprepared Ships

 The basic philosophy of ship security is (from USCG)

“hardening” merchant shipping targets. Even if such tactics cannot entirely prevent pirate attacks, they may prolong the time it takes for pirate groups operating from small craft to gain control of a target vessel long enough for naval or law enforcement response assets in the area to successfully intervene.

In the past when I explain this concept to crews  I would sometimes  get remarks along the lines of fighting off armed attackers with fire hoses was silly. Well there should no longer be any doubt.

From Strategy  Page The article is Pirates Feast On Gamblers

February 3, 2010: An analysis of the ships captured by Somali pirates last year found that most of them had ignored recommended security measures, while passing through the Gulf of Aden, or elsewhere along the Somali coast. About a quarter of the merchant ships moving through this danger zone just take their chances. The odds aren't bad. About one in 500 ships passing through the area are captured by pirates. But closer to one in a hundred are attacked or threatened. The pirates have learned to seek out the unprepared merchant ships, knowing that these will be easier to get aboard and capture. Thus these ships that are just playing the percentages, have a higher risk (closer to one in 200) or being captured.

Found at: Pirate Watch: Tumbling dice  at  The Best Defense  - Tom Rick's blog at Foreign Policy - worth a read if your involved in piracy defense

Piracy defense is like the  joke about the two hikers encountering a bear, the punchline is; I don''t have to outrun the bear, I have to outrun you.(you being the unprepared ship in this case)

K.C

Ice and Sail Craft

 I thought   Tugster's  two  posts about ice boats were interesting:  Approaches to Ice and Ice and Unusual Sail

To me, the ice boats seem literally fantastic, more closely resembling  creatures from a science fiction movie then boats. However the ice boats are shaped not by fantasy but by the requirements of transferring the power of the wind into ( vessel,   vehicle?) craft motion.

Anyway,  I still had ice boats on my mind when I checked out Innovations in America’s Cup Sailing at Old Salt Blog and I was struck by how closely the two  resembled each other, the ice boats and the racing  craft.

In both cases the  problem  being solved is the same, moving at high speed on the surface of the water, in one case frozen and in the other case not.

K.C.

Gesamtkunstwerk Plan - 70.8%

Sea-going ships departing port require a voyage plan which is a comprehensive summary of the planned trip. Some voyages on the other hand have Gesamtkunstwerk, which includes  "the aesthetic, the social, the political, the environmental and the spiritual realms":. Man on the River, by fair means - 70.8%

Generally I don't read boating blogs and I dislike blogs with photos of wooden boats that seem to be more art then practical, 70.8% is much more then a boating blog.

K.C.

STCW Regulatory Changes

From Navigating the Regulatory Seas

The USCG is proposing increased sea time and increased tonnage requirements to qualify both assessments and sea-time in several endorsements/licenses. This will make it extremely difficult for mariners who commonly sail on vessels under 100 tons to advance to higher licenses and will also limit many mariners to near-coastal domestic voyages.

I have added this blog to my blog roll, found via Clay Maitland.