El Faro Sinking

Does the Jones Act have anything to do with crew size?

Shoalwaters said:

There is talk on CNN of "black-box" voyage recorder(s). Is this the norm for ships like this, especially old repurposed ones?

I see no reports of EPIRB signals. Am I wrong to expect at least one of these to self-deploy when the ship went down?

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Yes I believe all ships must have VDR's.

Gonna be tough recovering that VDR.

Ski in NC said:

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Here's an interesting read from 1945 regarding a loss of warships in a Pacific typhoon. Some parallels to this incident. I also like Adm Nimitz's writing style. First rate guy on many levels.

Admiral Nimitz's Pacific Fleet Confidential Letter on Lessons of Damage in Typhoon

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There is much in Nimitz's letter that applies to wee small boats...

In not particular order and certainly not all of the brilliance that was written:

This was the last point and I split it up since to emphasize two ideas.

In conclusion, both seniors and juniors alike must realize that in bad weather, as in most other situations, safety and fatal hazard are not separated by any sharp boundary line, but shade gradually from one into the other. There is no little red light which is going to flash on and inform commanding officers or higher commanders that from then on there is extreme danger from the weather, and that measures for ships' safety must now take precedence over further efforts to keep up with the formation or to execute the assigned task. This time will always be a matter of personal judgment. Naturally no commander is going to cut thin the margin between staying afloat and foundering, but he may nevertheless unwittingly pass the danger point even though no ship is yet in extremis. Ships that keep on going as long as the severity of wind and sea has not yet come close to capsizing them or breaking them in two, may nevertheless become helpless to avoid these catastrophes later if things get worse. By then they may be unable to steer any heading but in the trough of the sea, or may have their steering control, lighting , communications, and main propulsion disabled, or may be helpless to secure things on deck or to jettison topside weights.

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The time for taking all measures for a ship's safety is while still able to do so. Nothing is more dangerous than for a seaman to be grudging in taking precautions lest they turn out to have been unnecessary. Safety at sea for a thousand years has depended on exactly the opposite philosophy.

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10. It is possible that too much reliance is being placed on outside sources for warnings of dangerous weather, and on the ability of our splendid ships to come through anything that wind and wave can do. If this be so, there is need for a revival of the age-old habits of self-reliance and caution in regard to the hazard from storms, and for officers in all echelons of command to take their personal responsibilities in this respect more seriously.

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9. Seamen of the present day should be better at forecasting weather at sea, independently of the radio, than were their predecessors. The general laws of storms and the weather expectancy for all months of the year in all parts of the world are now more thoroughly understood, more completely catalogued, and more readily available in various publications. An intensive study of typhoons and Western Pacific weather was made over a period of many years by Father Depperman at the Manila observatory, and his conclusions have been embodied in the material available to all aerologists. What Knight and Bowditch have to say on the subject is exactly as true during this war as it was in time of peace or before the days of the radio. Familiarity with these authorities is something that no captain or navigator can do without. The monthly pilot charts, issued to all ships, give excellent information as to the probable incidence and movements of typhoons. Stress on the foregoing is no belittlement of our aerological centers and weather broadcasts. But just as a navigator is held culpable if he neglects "Log, Lead, and Lookout" through blind faith in his radio fixes, so is the seaman culpable who regards personal weather estimates as obsolete and assumes that if no radio storm warning has been received, then all is well, and no local weather signs need cause him concern.

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I underlined the sentence about Bowditch...

Not saying that the El Faro's captain violated Nimitz's points since we don't know what happened. Even though technology has improved greatly since WWII, Nimitz's point are still valid.

Later,
Dan

No, the Jones Act has nothing to do with crew size, the USCG does when they issue the COI.

SaltyDawg86 said:

No, the Jones Act has nothing to do with crew size, the USCG does when they issue the COI.

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Thanks on the Jones Act. COI?

SaltyDawg86 said:

No, the Jones Act has nothing to do with crew size, the USCG does when they issue the COI.

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But indirectly, the Jones Act puts a ship such as this under the auspices of the USCG, where most ships entering our ports being foreign flagged, are not. Is this correct?

Larry M said:

Thanks on the Jones Act. COI?

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Certificate of inspection.

dimer2 said:

Certificate of inspection.

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Thanks!

Shoalwaters said:

I see no reports of EPIRB signals. Am I wrong to expect at least one of these to self-deploy when the ship went down?

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No not wrong. Automatic EPIRBs release when a certain depth is reached. Its possible the EPIRB released but got caught in the rigging or superstructure. Would they have brought it inside the house to prevent accidental release during the hurricane? I'm sure the investigating team will find out why.

One thing I don't know if has been mentioned or not. This ship was scheduled to be retired, then refit, then sent to the PNW.

Still baffled by there being zero survivors... Usually someone gets lucky.

Lucky in a cat 3 hurricane? With no enclosed lifeboats? Sadly not likely.

Here's a quote I hadn't read before. It's speculation but by someone who prior to retirement made that run, so should know how the company works. I don't dismiss the possibility however that he has an ax to grind with them. This is from AP.

And, from CNN

One crew member wrote her mother an email saying the crew was heading directly into Hurricane Joaquin. "Winds are super bad," she said. "Love to everyone."​

BandB said:

"Winds are super bad," she said. "Love to everyone."

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My head keeps going to places I don't like, when thinking about those poor souls and what they may have gone through. Perhaps for hours.

If power was lost due to boiler failure for whatever reason, propulsion may not have been the only shutdown. Steam driven turbines for electrical power, pumps, steerage, lighting, ship to shore and onboard communication.

33 people in various places, feeling their way around in the dark, sensing cargo movement above, knowing, wondering...

BandB said:

And, from CNN

One crew member wrote her mother an email saying the crew was heading directly into Hurricane Joaquin. "Winds are super bad," she said. "Love to everyone."​

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That email can be interpreted in several ways. My guess is she did not mean they were literally heading directly in to a hurricane. But heading into the area where the storm might be.

Capt.Bill11 said:

That email can be interpreted in several ways. My guess is she did not mean they were literally heading directly in to a hurricane. But heading into the area where the storm might be.

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Well, we don't know the rest of the email. The writer says she said they were headed directly into Joaquin, but we don't know what she actually said or meant.

The investigations are generally very thorough and informative. They take a long time but this one will be interesting reading when available. We know now that it was very tragic. However, we don't know if it was a situation where everything just transpired against the boat in spite of good planning and preparation or if it was one of those where people made horrible decisions for unacceptable reasons that put lives in danger.

Like Hawgwash, I think of what those 33 went through, I think of what those in South Carolina went through this week and it takes the life out of me a bit.

BandB said:

If it was a yacht, there would be many more. A 280' yacht for charter has a crew of 29.

Perhaps it's recreational thinking, but I think of 33 for a ship that size and type, if anything, to be a small crew. Just thinking of all the cargo being carried that they must keep an eye on. Everything being done 24/7 so that means at any time you only have 11 crew working. A lot of ship and a lot of area for 11 people to handle.

Edit...with only 29 crew then only 10 on duty at a time.

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I'm on a 730' freighter. We have a total of 13 regular crew. Four of them are the deck crew, who are generally day workers, or only working while we're in port conducting cargo operations. When we're underway, there are only two people on watch. Just a mate or captain in the pilothouse, and an engineer below. Many ships will also have a deck watch AB, but mine does not. Increasing levels of automation are reducing crew sizes all the time. There are many vessels out there with unmanned engine rooms. Our ballast system was recently automated, and is now my job to manage, instead of the pumpman, who has been made redundant. A big part of the reason that many older Lakers are being turned into tug/barge units, is due to the fact that since this is technically just a tugboat, we're only required to carry the crew needed to man the tug. Companies are always looking to cut crew where they can.

Shoalwaters said:

There is talk on CNN of "black-box" voyage recorder(s). Is this the norm for ships like this, especially old repurposed ones?

I see no reports of EPIRB signals. Am I wrong to expect at least one of these to self-deploy when the ship went down?

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The hydrostatic release could have failed. I'm not sure how likely that is, but its possible. The Epirb could have been released, then snagged on something and taken down with the ship. This seems especially likely if she capsized suddenly. Someone could have taken the Epirb off station on their way to a lifeboat, and were then themselves taken down with the ship. Lots of things could have happened.

N4712 said:

Yes I believe all ships must have VDR's.

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No VDR here.

As far as the email goes, to me, something seems off. That email was sent on Thursday, yet Thursday morning it was reported the ship lost power. Yes, she could have been on the 00-04 watch and sent that email right after, and that could give us a better time line of the events that happened. One would think if the ship had already lost power or the Marine Incident had already happened, she would have wrote about it.

As far as the ship falling under the USCG control, it's because it's a US flagged ship, not because it's a Jones Act vessel. You can be a non-Jones Act, US flagged ship.

I believe they do have a VDR. I hope the do and it's found, it would really help us put things together.

SaltyDawg86 said:

...I believe they do have a VDR. I hope the do and it's found, it would really help us put things together.

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Data recorder
An important part of the salvage operation will be the recovery of the voyage data recorder, according to Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman with the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency leading the investigation.
The recorder, which captures on board audio from the bridge as well as the ship's course and speed, would've begun pinging once it was submerged in water. It has a battery life of 30 days, Dinh-Zarr said.
Remotely operated underwater vehicles will be able to retrieve the recorder once it's located, she said

Larry M said:

Data recorder
Remotely operated underwater vehicles will be able to retrieve the recorder once it's located, she said

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She makes it sound easy but how do you locate and recover a small item, 3 miles down, on a 790 foot ship with "391 shipping containers and about 294 trailers of cars."?

Another question, are there no US boiler makers on the east coast?

Hawgwash said:

She makes it sound easy but how do you locate and recover a small item, 3 miles down, on a 790 foot ship with "391 shipping containers and about 294 trailers...

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Oh but she's got a PhD in public health, I'm sure that makes her an expert on deep sea recovery. (I'm frequently dumbfounded by high level fed gov't appointments, or even worse, officials holding forth at a podium to the media when they're actually clueless.)

Hawgwash said:

She makes it sound easy but how do you locate and recover a small item, 3 miles down, on a 790 foot ship with "391 shipping containers and about 294 trailers of cars."?

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The US Navy found the missing Russian Golf class submarine in 18000 ft back in 1972. It can be done with unmanned submersibles.

High Wire said:

The US Navy found the missing Russian Golf class submarine in 18000 ft back in 1972. It can be done with unmanned submersibles.

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Yep.
Depending upon the position of the vessel on the bottom, debris/cargo, etc., the problem may not be "locating" the VDR, but rather gaining access to it.

Where would a VDR typically be located on a ship?

Larry M said:

Where would a VDR typically be located on a ship?

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Some place like this.

High Wire said:

The US Navy found the missing Russian Golf class submarine in 18000 ft back in 1972. It can be done with unmanned submersibles.

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It's not finding the ship that is the issue. It's finding the VDR.

Capt.Bill11 said:

It's not finding the ship that is the issue. It's finding the VDR.

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Agreed, or maybe just gaining access to it when they do.

Here's a Wikipedia link to the VDR if that helps:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_data_recorder

Capt.Bill said:

Some place like this.

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Thanks!