El Faro - What was the Captain Thinking is the Wrong Question

DPA is John Richard Lawrence

I attended the United States Merchant Marine Academy, graduated in
1975. I sailed for approximately 14 years. With the last few years as Master on deep sea vessels.

In your function as the Designated Person ashore, who do you directly report to?

WIT: The President and CEO, Admiral Phil Greene

Mr. Fawcett: And within Tote Services who reports directly to you?

WIT: Ms. Patty, uh Patricia Finsterbusch, she’s my assistant.

Mr. Fawcett: Thank you. So as the Manager of Safety and Operations, how do you assess risks?

WIT: We, well it’s in our safety management system manuals, and it has a whole page on risk assessment. However, we expect our people, our employees to assess risks. Typically we assess risks by a various different methods. One of our key methods i the job hazard analysis that we perform, that’s performed before every task they do on
the vessels. We, obviously with this hearing here we inform risk assessment by voyage planning on the ships. We have various forms and permits we utilize within the
company. Specifically upper management has a risk matrix that we utilize on that.
Near miss reporting and safety programs. That to me that’s our risk assessment as well.

5 Mr. Fawcett: So from a safety perspective, does anybody in the company have a specific task with monitoring tropical weather?

7 WIT: No, sir.

This is about the phone call from Capt Davidson to the DPA

CAPT Neubauer: Sir, when you received that phone message, were you aware that
Joaquin was in the vicinity of the El Faro

WIT: No, excuse me, no, sir. I mean, I knew the hurricane was in the Atlantic, but I was
not aware that it was in the vicinity of the vessel.

CAPT Neubauer: Had you read the email from Captain Davidson discussing trying to
go south of the hurricane by 65 miles?

WIT: Yes, sir.

CAPT Neubauer: So you were aware that Hurricane Joaquin was in the vicinity of the
El Faro potentially?

WIT: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I was interpreting vicinity meaning right on it. When you asked
that before, yes, sir, I was aware of his plans per that email on the prior day.

DPA does not connect problems aboard ship to Joaquin.

Mr. Fawcett: Yes, sir, Captain. Captain Lawrence, what was your assessment of the situation aboard El Faro when you reviewed that message?

WIT: I knew he was having some type of problem that he wanted to contact and talk to me about.

Mr. Fawcett: Did the thought cross your mind that he was in close proximity to Hurricane Joaquin?

9 WIT: At that time, I did not, you know, put the two together that that was the reason for his call.

This is Port Engineer Fisker-Andersen - Hearing 1 day 4

work for Tote Services as Director of Ship Management.

I’m a 1990 graduate of California Maritime Academy. Bachelors of Science and
Marine Engineering Technology. I sailed for 5 years on my license. And I’ve worked in
shipboard management for 20 years.

Reports to Phil Morrell. - VP of Technical Operations.

Mr. Fawcett: So what’s your understanding of who the Master of the El Faro reported
2 to?

3 WIT: Uh ----
4 Mr. Fawcett: Within Tote.

5 WIT: You know the Master is the Master of the ship. And the ship operates somewhat
6 autonomously. The Master is reporting to multiple people for different things. He would
7 – he could address issues of safety to the Designated Person. He would address
8 issues of HR issues to Director of Human Resources. And he would address issues of
9 technical operations concern to the Vice President of Operations. Or his direct reports
10 which would be including myself.

11 Mr. Fawcett: So on board ship the Chief Mate reports directly to the Master.

12 WIT: That’s correct.

13 Mr. Fawcett: Shore side who would be the direct report from the Master to a shore side
14 person, who would that be?

15 WIT: I’m confused. Can you say that again?

16 Mr. Fawcett: In other words there’s a direct line of reporting between the Chief Mate
17 and the Master.

18 WIT: That’s correct.

19 Mr. Fawcett: It’s undeniably clear.
20 WIT: That’s correct.

21 Mr. Fawcett: Who ashore does the Master report to?

WIT: The Master operates autonomously

When Davidson asked permission to use OBC on the return leg, it’s this PE that answered, Fisker-Andersen. The DPA didn’t ans right away because he was confused about the timing of the question.

[QUOTE=KPChief;196315]
The captain seems perfectly able to make decisions and inform the office. What doesn’t seem so clear is what does the office do with their “awareness” of his intent? I don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling about the state of the resource management going on that bridge but having had the engine version of that training I know I too have a long way to go to create the ideal work place. But what role does the office, should the office have in this? No inquisitiveness about what they received? No comparison of his analysis with what they could see in the office? Possibly saying “hey Cap I see you are using some old forecasts there” or “we would like you to provide even more margin with the storm”. The El Faro seems caught between the old way of doing things and the new way, not having weather routing even when it was identified by Tote themselves as having value (see the testimony about the west coast ship with the shaft damage).
[/QUOTE]

Seems like there is no formal requirement to submit the voyage plan. The PE and DPA claim that the reports are so they can inform concerned parties, the terminal etc. But if that’s the case and the Master truly operates autonomously all they need is the revised ETA.

They’re not doing anything with risk side of the equation, the information that the plan is to pass 60 miles south of the center is not evaluated in any way.

[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;196368]This is from the hearing

Mr. Morrell, - his title is Vice President Marine Operations, commercial.

He states that his primary focus is Vessel maintenance.[/QUOTE]

Yes it was surprising to me to read of the actual organization structure. Operations seems to mean one thing to you and me and another to that management team. A vessel manager might typically have ops, technical even purchasing teams under them (perhaps even crewing in s smaller company) with HSEQ (including the DPA’s) in a separate line reporting to highest levels of management. Which Tote services did seem to have. Something seems a but twisted in their arrangement but can’t quite put my finger on it yet.

The board seems to have difficulty coming to terms with the fact that there is no Port Captain type position within the Tote Services company. The duties seem to have passed to the Masters themselves, the port engineers or for some items even the cargo people at Tote Maritime PR (the actual owner of the ship and handling all the cargo side). It seems like they overlooked the aspect of a typical port captain or vessel manager that might lend monitoring and support to Masters with regard to what the board keeps bringing up as “nautical” issues.

Here is a sample again from the DPA testimony. He seems like the only guy with deck experience himself a Master. (Loftfield referred to is one of the captains of the El Yunque - that is some interesting back and forth too - see hearing 1 day 3 transcript)

Mr. Kucharski:
For, I’m going to go back to nautical issues. We asked Captain Loftfield about this in his testimony. Who would a Master on board the vessel if they wanted to come to someone shore side with nautical issues such as route planning, stability concerns, if there’s a discrepancy in the visual and computer drafts, for ship handling training, for adverse weather training, for bridge resource management training in adverse weather? Who would they come to at the company for the nautical expertise?

WIT:
Obviously the first answer would be they have probably more nautical expertise on the vessel itself and then during the time that they’re looking for it in the office, anytime they need support of any type of question for any of their operations they can always come to anybody in the office or the department they feel is best suited to address that, and they do. And once again as I said as my position as the designated person, I always encourage when I’m speaking to the vessels and on board the vessels that if they don’t know where to go to come to me and I’ll steer them in the right direction.

Mr. Kucharski:
That’s interesting. You just mentioned to the department, the particular department. But what department would the Master go to for those type of nautical issues? That’s my question.

WIT:
Again they could probably go to the, I would say he could go to the director, his specific director of ship management
for any inquires or the Port Engineer.

Mr. Kucharski:
So the Port Engineer would be able to discuss voyage planning with the Master?

WIT:
If he couldn’t he would take it to the appropriate person he felt that could help him out with that issue. Again it’s kind of a team sport, we’re you know within our office and everybody – if we can’t get – don’t have the answer yourself, we find the answer.

Mr. Kucharski:
Okay. So let’s just deal with route planning, if it wasn’t the Port Engineer, couldn’t answer that, who then would the Master go to? Who would have that expertise at the company?

WIT:
For?

Mr. Kucharski:
Route planning.

WIT:
Route planning. Once again it’s the Master has the best expertise for route planning probably above and beyond anybody else
in the office. I don’t really know exactly what type of question he would have on that that he would address to us. However, again you got a lot of expertise in our office. You know combining 100’s of years of experience whether that be my maritime background for 40 plus years or you have Admiral Greene’s you know Navy background and then a number of other people with maritime and military and Coast Guard backgrounds throughout our organization that could, like I said, I’m positive could address any questions the vessels bring to us or find out the answers for them.

Aside from their office staffing choices more than one witness from Tote Services seem vague or even confused on how things work. It might just be sort of like “white coat hypertension” phenomenon where testifying before a board leads to brain farts etc. or it might be an organization with some flaws in structure and staffing. Here is a section from the Morrell testimony. I’m not talking about a guy forgetting a job title, that’s not remarkable but the part where he seems to be under the impression the DPA answers to the the port engineers for matters of maintenance? He should have just answered the question “Is there a reporting relationship where Captain John Lawrence the designated person reports to you in any fashion?” with “NO, he answers to his boss the director of safety and services”.

Mr. Fawcett: Is there a reporting relationship where Captain John Lawrence the designated person reports to you in any fashion?

WIT: He reports to the port engineer on a day to day basis and then it sort of works it way up to me if it’s necessary. But the primary – his primary direct report on vessel maintenance matters would be the port engineer.

Mr. Fawcett: And how about Mr. Lee Peterson, does he report to you?

WIT: No.

Mr. Fawcett: And who does he report to?

WIT: Lee Peterson I believe reports directly to Admiral Greene.

Mr. Fawcett: And what’s Mr., at the time of the accident, what was Mr. Peterson’s title?

WIT: He was Director of, I can’t think of his exact title. Not – safety or, I can’t exactly, I’m sorry I can’t think of his exact title.

Mr. Fawcett: Okay, so according to the organization chart, Mr. Peterson is Director of Safety and Services. And Captain Lawrence falls under his organizational structure. Why wouldn’t they report to the Vice President of Operations?

WIT: Well, I believe you want to have safety reporting up through a different chain, not to operations.

OK so hypothetically, I get as DPA some crew member feeling some maintenance issue exists and having both the CE and Captain ignoring it might rightfully go to the DPA. But the DPA would probably not go to port engineers to resolve it. Would he? It seems the right thing to do would be to go to his own boss Director of Safety and Services and start a procedure to determine the validity of the complaint, help find out what communications broke down onboard the ship such that a such a report was filed, help determine a conclusion or at least track that one is proposed and executed, etc. etc, BUT not in any sense report to the port engineer.

The more you read you see that the port engineer has become the primary point of contact with the ships. Office types seem to be improvising whenever asked about details of who would go to whom about what. Despite repeated recitations of how good things are because they all sat in a open office layout and “team sport” approach, it seems to me there was not a common understanding of who provides what support to who. If this is even partially true a crisis is not the time to sort out the duties and relationships and realize we could have been keeping a closer eye on things.

I hope the board includes thoughts on the organization of this operating company as part of the final report.

[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;196383]Seems like there is no formal requirement to submit the voyage plan. The PE and DPA claim that the reports are so they can inform concerned parties, the terminal etc. But if that’s the case and the Master truly operates autonomously all they need is the revised ETA.

They’re not doing anything with risk side of the equation, the information that the plan is to pass 60 miles south of the center is not evaluated in any way.[/QUOTE]

Exactly! There is a difference between giving the master the over riding authority with regard to routing and final say (that is as it should be) AND not checking / monitoring the operation of the ship in general and specifically with regard to for example weather, piracy or other security issues, etc.

Easy to say weather routing “was the masters job”. Is that mutually exclusive of keeping an eye on things? Of as you say in the interest of managing risk - actively monitoring ship ops or even prior to the need having more concrete procedures with regard to storm avoidance along the lines of the things you have brought up before, do not enter a certain wind field, etc, etc.

I also wonder if this specific trade might have taken on the feeling of being a “milk run”. If the complacency we are trained to avoid seeped in to the shoreside management of these ships.

This is not to say Tote Services is evil but they would seem to have some management challenges. I hope they are eventually enumerated so others can learn from them.

The ops side is for the most part is routine and low cost. Engineering on the other hand has big costs, it takes a lot time and attention to keep high reliability while keeping the budget under control.

Over time a small company would evolve to focus on the eng side, I would think that the big ops risks are not as apparent.

This may fit into the discussion on the leadership qualities of those involved in the El Faro accident, shoreside as well as shipside: http://splash247.com/poisoned-profits-toxic-leaders-kill-excellence/

Towing a log barge one time, with 100,000 bf, south along the B.C. coast. Log are bundled together in log truck size bundles but the bundles aren’t lashed down in any way.

Capt Jerry, lots of experience on that run. We were approaching a leg open to the Pacific to the west. Before he went below at noon, the capt told me not to call him to tell him if I thought the barge was rolling too much because he could judge from his room if the weather was up too much for the load.

Once I got outside the wind was calm, not a ripple but there was this long swell from the west. A couple hours in little motion on the tug but the barge started synchronous rolling. So I’m watch it roll thinking wtf. Seems like the logs bundles might slide off. But Capt Jerry told me not to call if that’s what I thought. Then the barge started rolling so bad the ends of the logs were dipping into the sea.

I ended up calling the captain, he came up, said he’d never seen the barge roll that much, we steered a little more W’ly and the barge stopped rolling.

So from hearing 1 day 3 - the captain of the Yunque:

Mr. Kucharski: Before the El Faro sinking, what was the maximum wind speed you
would subject the El Faro or the El Yunque to?

The – there’s not a – I do not have a set speed that says this is wind I’m not going
to do, or this is wind I’m going to do. I don’t gage it in speed, in wind speed. I generally
will go with what how the weather or how the vessel is handling in the weather,

There was how the vessel was handling in the seas and that’s the determining factor in ship handling. There’s not a straight forward, this is a wind speed that is going to have an impact on the vessel that the vessel can’t handle. It’s more
function of what’s happened with the sea and swell and whether there’s more than one swell, whether there’s a cross swell, whether the vessel can actually be steered in a comfortable non-threatening manner for the vessel.

If that’s the thinking, the limits can be determined by how the vessel is handling the sea, that can judged, to an extent, without coming to the bridge.

I’ve been going through the MBI first hearing transcripts and I think that the board believes, as I do, that a working anemometer would be useful to the watch officers aboard a ship approaching a tropical cyclone at night when the locaton of the center is not known.

What the board wants to know is; are mariners aware of the importance of knowing wind direction when approaching a tropical cyclone.

This is the second mate, the one that sent the captain text from home.

CDR Denning: What’s the purpose of an anemometer on a ship?

WIT: It tells you wind speed and wind direction.

I think likely Denning knows that already. So next…

CDR Denning: What do you typically use that information for? What do you do with that information once you receive it?

WIT: We would log wind force over 5, force 5 which is I think it’s 17, if the wind goes over 17 knots we usually log it hourly because that might affect our, it will affect our speed.

Now Denning gives a little help

CDR Denning: Would the – would a working anemometer help you in your voyage planning in terms of evading a storm?

But nothing:

WIT: Umm —

Denning tries again; this is the exchange:

CDR Denning: Perhaps validating the information that comes to you through BVS?

WIT: I normally wouldn’t check the anemometer for a voyage plan. I would just – the voyage plan would be the route from San Juan to Jacksonville, or Jacksonville to San Juan.

CDR Denning: If the information that you receive in BVS is providing you with a certain
wind speed and you observed a different wind speed with the anemometer would that
catch your attention?

WIT: Not overly so. Because they never completely will coincide. The BVS servicemmight say you have a certain barometric pressure but the actual one will be a little different at the ship and the seas will be a little bit different. It wouldn’t overly concern me if they were a little bit different.

Denning is still asking:

CDR Denning: Do you feel like you’re able to accurately, without a working anemometer, do you think you’re able to accurately estimate the wind speed and direction?

WIT: I could probably estimate it within 5 knots.

CAPT Neubauer: Sir, can you clarify the number you just provided? Within how many knots?

WIT: 5, within 5 knots.

Later, another go-round.

CDR Odom: Okay, thank you. Getting back to the anemometer, do you think that’s a critical piece of an equipment or not for safe navigation of the vessel? Do you think it’s necessary?

WIT: Well it’s an added piece of equipment, but I wouldn’t hold the ship up because I didn’t have a working anemometer.

CDR Odom: So during a casualty like a grounding or a loss of propulsion, would you think that would be – knowing the wind speed and direction instantly and reporting it to establish drift, would you think that would be an important piece of equipment? During a casualty.

WIT: During a casualty I could guestimate the wind, we can guestimate very accurately, that’s what we do.

And later, again:

Mr. Kucharski: You mentioned you were on those vessels in heavy weather, was that at night time too? Was it night time conditions?

WIT: Night and day.

Mr. Kucharski: Night and day. What wind force were you talking about at night that you encountered?

WIT: Probably 70, 80, you know 70, 80 knot winds, but it would peg out the anemometer over 100, at 100.

Mr. Kucharski: Did it peg out the anemometer on the El Faro?

14 WIT: Yeah, yes.

Mr. Kucharski: So at one time you did have a working anemometer?

WIT: Yes, at one time we did.

Mr. Kucharski: Without the anemometer in those conditions where it’s blowing 70, 80 knots, can you describe what it’s like? Is the antenna’s whipping, and the rigging, and is there spray usually associated with that?

But the answer is not very accurate, seas and wind are not always from the same direction.

WIT: Well you’re going to hear, you’re going to hear a racket, it sounds like a train going by. And depending on the direction of the wind, if it’s on your beam you’re going to roll, if it’s on the bow you usually can go right through it, it’s going to slow you right down considerably.

Mr. Kucharski: And under those conditions would you be able to tell the direction and the speed, the direction of the wind within, or the speed within 5 knots?

WIT: When it gets that high I probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

4 Mr. Kucharski: How about the direction, would you be able to?

WIT: I could get the direction, but not the speed as accurate.

It’s not that the board doesn’t understand that wind velocity can be estimated by eye, they are trying to determine if mariners understand the significance in this case.

Here’s from the Captain Loftus letter

A. There was a lot of discussion, and questioning, about the El Faro anemometer not working, and the importance given to that piece of equipment. There was a debate between the Board and a Witness about the importance, and relevance, of the anemometer. Anemometers are indeed important pieces of equipment. Nonetheless, the anemometer was not going to save the El Faro. Indeed, it was not going to change the route chosen, or the need to change route. My inference from the Board questioning was that without the anemometer, and darkness, there was no information about the wind. i.e. the inability to see the wave condition and Sea State. Mariners can feel the wind, and certainly feel the motion of the ship in increasing seas and swells. From a Mariner’s perspective, even in the dark, a good mate can go out on the bridge wing and estimate the Relative Wind and work a reverse solution to get the True Wind. The more important questions about the anemometer is why it wasn’t repaired. Why were repairs delayed? Was there a CAR written?

I think the inference is wrong, I would say almost all mariners including the members of the board are aware that wind velocity can be estimated, it’s a no-brainer. On the other hand how many mariners are aware how important knowing wind directions is in this case and that it can be used to determine the center of the low? I’d say very few.

“Any man can make mistakes, only an idiot persists in his error” Marcus Tullius Cicero

Here the captain of the El Yunque gets asked who is his boss.

Mr. Fawcett: Okay. So who’s your boss?

The answer is a bit long - the gist of it is this:

So who’s my boss is not a real clear easy thing for me to answer. I’m the Chief Mate’s boss. I can tell you that. And to a specific extent by OMV, or by any ship’s structure the Captain is the boss of everybody on a ship. But in terms of my boss that’s a set of relationships with the company.

This setup allows several people in the office to have authority over the captain but any responsibility on the company side is diffused. A punch shore-side to ship lands directly on the captain but a punch at shoreside is like taking a swing at a fog bank.

Hearing 1 Day 3 The Captain of the El Yunque

The board is trying to determine what tactics are used to avoid heavy weather.

Mr. Kucharski: Before the El Faro sinking, what was the maximum wind speed you
would subject the El Faro or the El Yunque to?

WIT: The – there’s not a – I do not have a set speed that says this is wind I’m not going to do, or this is wind I’m going to do. I don’t gage it in speed, in wind speed. I generally will go with what how the weather or how the vessel is handling in the weather, whether or not I can press into it some more. If the – there was an incident where I was going to Philadelphia on the El Yunque and there was a hurricane that was also going to Philadelphia and it wanted to be there at the same time that I was scheduled to be there. And there was some possibility that hurricane might take a different course so I was staying as close to the hurricane as I could. I did not have a mile distance or a wind speed distance that was determining whether I could go further towards Philadelphia or not. There was how the vessel was handling in the seas and that’s the determining factor in ship handling. There’s not a straight forward, this is a wind speed that is going to have an impact on the vessel that the vessel can’t handle. It’s more function of what’s happened with the sea and swell and whether there’s more than one swell, whether there’s a cross swell, whether the vessel can actually be steered in a comfortable non-threatening manner for the vessel. It’s never occurred to me to think that 65 knots is going to be okay and but if it goes to 70 knots I need to take an evasive action based on the fact that it’s changed from 65 to 70. Can you repeat your question?

Later the same line of questioning;

CDR Denning: What references would you utilize to aid you in avoiding a storm?

Long answer ending with:

WIT: All of those are utilized in assessing the – what kind of weather can be anticipated

CDR Denning: And then once you have that information, how do you determine how close to allow your vessel to come to a storm system? And is there specific guidance on that?

It’d been better if he’d specified a tropical systems but here the answer:

WIT: Umm, a storm system is a pretty vague or pretty ambiguous size and shape and intensity. What I generally aim for is to have as smooth of a ride – a smooth enough ride to not risk damaging cargo and to not risk exhausting crew. So I don’t think in terms of the center of a storm system. I think on the BVS system it – the feature that most frequently utilize is the wave height and it goes from white of virtually nothing to light blue, dark blue, it goes into the yellows and gets into the reds and it looks really angry. It does a very good job of graphically presenting that. And also it gives me the indication of the direction that it’s coming from. If I’m looking at a beam sea and swell when we’re in a light condition, when the rolling period is shorter and it’s potentially really going to be very exhausting to the crew, I’ll take an alternate route just to avoid having the crew exhaustion.

This is similar to what is heard on the VDR transcripts of the El Faro. The only factor that’s looked at is the wave height. No accounting for the risk of forecast error.

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The thinking of the MBI can be inferred from the line of questioning.

  • TOTE captains used wave heights for heavy weather avoidance - that’s ok of mid-latitude storms, not for tropical systems

  • Captains had no direct line of reporting to anyone in the office

  • No true operations dept. No operation expertise available to captains.

  • Captains evaluated by port engineers - not by people knowledgeable about operations. PE would likely evaluate by how cooperative captains are.

  • Hiring, promotions including to captain done by people with little or no expertise in operations. Even if other captains are consulted like minded people will recomended each other

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A post was split to a new topic: Marine Academies, fall short on teaching essential fundamentals

Here from Splash 24/7 yesterday: http://splash247.com/no-blame-culture-reflections-ashore-human-factors-shipping-accidents/

Two interesting studies of leadership under stress in wildlife firefighting:

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usda/blm_putnam_storm_king.pdf

Cheers,

Earl

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From: THE COLLAPSE OF DECISIONMAKING AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ON STORM KING MOUNTAIN

Second, risk-taking is subject to perceived and actual rewards and punishments. When we attach a stigma to deploying a fire shelter, we bias firefighters into taking more risks to escape. If there’s a stigma associated with dropping packs and tools, firefighters will carry everything while trying to outrun a fire. If a stigma is attached to abandoning a fire or the fireline, firefighters will take more risks to control a fire. The various payoffs associated with risk-taking are not necessarily those managers claim are operating.

This is applicable in this case.

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A lot of discussion on owner/charterer control and master’s overriding authority with regards to routing. In a port to port transit, overriding authority is not generally applicable.

It’s only a slight oversimplification to say my instructions regarding routing are to use the shortest safe route.

TOTE claims that they gave no guidance to masters, I think it’s safe to assume that shortest, safe route were the implied instructions.

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I would say that principle is the same across all marine sectors, whether vaguely implied or otherwise written into policy or guidance.

And of course it’s all a load of shite. Safe for whom? How safe? Define “safe” if you dare. If they had made it to San Juan then it would have been defined as “safe” by virtue of the fact of their arrival. The actual result has since been defined as “unsafe” due to El Faro’s present location and disposition.

The many shades of grey we normally have to operate within are where the real action almost always is, and it takes “skill” and “good judgment” and, above all, genuine humility to operate in those zones in a manner that consistently gives everyone more than thin margins between going home at crew change or becoming a statistic in one form or another.

I have little regard or patience with the usual “be safe” or “safety first” rhetoric and policies that offer nothing of substance and mean even less. Lots of smoke is blown, but talk is cheap.

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The many shades of grey we normally have to operate within are where the real action almost always is, and it takes “skill” and “good judgment” and, above all, genuine humility to operate in those zones in a manner that consistently gives everyone more than thin margins between going home at crew change or becoming a statistic in one form or another.

I know from my time towing it requires good seamanship, by contrast, deep-sea while we have a high opinion of our skills we go to great lengths to avoid putting those skills to the test. We have explicit guidance to use for storm avoidance, UKC, CPAs in traffic, procedures in limited visibility and so forth.

I have book shelves (or hard drives) full of specific procedures and guidance. For hurricanes- here

For tropical cyclones:

I would differentiate between getting caught somehow as opposed to planning an encounter.

Assuming the encounter was planned:

Outside the 34 kt wind field = Safe
More than 34 kts but less then 50 kts = Not safe, there has been a screw-up of some kind
More than 50 kts = head up the ass ignorant.

For the El Yunque, they reported 100 kts wind gusts, They made it, but that’s still head up the ass territory.

I have little regard or patience with the usual “be safe” or “safety first” rhetoric and policies that offer nothing of substance and mean even less. Lots of smoke is blown, but talk is cheap.

I agree, I very much dislike nagging type safety crap. But what I get from operations is very specific.