Anatomy of a grounding
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In last January, the ship “Cork” running in the Clipper Round The World race hit a reef in the indonesian waters. I was wondering how a vessel with all the modern equipment, the back-up charts, a trained crew and a seasoned skipper could hit a reef with a lighthouse.
Thanks to the detailed report from the States of Jersey – the ship is registered in Jersey – I got some answers.
Thanks to the detailed report from the States of Jersey – the ship is registered in Jersey – I got some answers.
From the report:
The principal causes of the grounding and loss of Cork were
- Total reliance was placed on electronic navigation. No second system of navigation was used to verify positions obtained from the GPS
- Total reliance was placed on the chart, even though the survey source data was very old (ndlr 150 years old!!) – Warnings regarding GPS positions and chart accuracy were disregarded, even though they clearly indicated that the charts were unreliable
- The position of the reef on the chart was inaccurate, approximately 1000m east of the charted position
- The navigation light and the Racon beacon were not working. (Warnings on the chart advised that the aids to navigation within Indonesian waters may be missing, unlit or out of position)
- The electronic charts did not appear to contain the warnings that were shown on the borders of the largest scale paper chart, which should have alerted the skipper to the fact that Gosong Mampango was almost a mile to the east of its charted position
- When the light and Racon beacon were not raised visually or on the radar no precautions were taken
Conclusions: read the charts warnings, cross-check an electronic position, pass 10 miles away from a waypoint, 1 mile is too close…
Written by Alexis
August 16th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Posted in Uncategorized
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