There’s a couple issues with lowering the anchor with the winch in this situation. Typically, in my experience at least, an anchor is considered “ready to let go” when it is walked out and on the brake. To have to re-engage the windlass is going to take some time. The second issue is the risk of damage to the hydraulic motor taking a load beyond it’s design limits.
The condition of the anchor gear of going to vary from ship to ship, as will the quality of the crew on the bow.
The LASH ship I was on (it had been converted to containers) had a brake operated by hydraulics, it was controlled by a switch on the console and operated almost instantly.
In the case of the Cosco Busan, the one where the pilot steered into the bridge supporting tower, the pilot was described in the papers as “brusque”, which is a polite way of saying he was unpleasant to deal with, in more salty terms an a**hole… There are many excellent pilots who are good to work with but not all.
The alternative to dealing with large heavy ships in tight quarters at high speed is this:
I personally more often preferred working in the less-regulated ports, at least until things unravel.
I must say that I am a little confused by this post.
The reason that we had very prescriptive speed profiles, as prescribed in the SOP, is that we handled fully loaded capesize bulk carriers with minimum UKC in a very narrow channel whilst passing other bulk carriers loading at the channel berths. If we did not adhere to the prescribed passing speeds then hydrodynamics would take over, parting mooring lines, potentially injuring both ships crew and stevedoring staff and displacing the loading vessel off the berth.
There was no allowance or scope for individual interpretation.
This is exactly why two first iteration Pilots were dismissed. One very nearly put a 300m capesize bulk carrier through a wharf owing to his recurring approach speeds and the second ripped a loading vessel off a wharf, parting all lines, owing to his passing speed.
I was a Master prior to taking up Pilotage and have seen it from both sides.
Give me a regulated port Pilotage.
On the other hand we have a deep draft 350m container ship doing 10.5knots, in a clearly unregulated port, whilst 3 ship lengths off a very tight dead end berth, with tugs not made fast relying on good old BRM to get the situation under control………
For the most part, I personally would prefer not to just be a cog in a giant machine but that’s where the evolution of marine transportation is taking us.
EDIT: Actually I didn’t mind being a cog all that much, it’s mostly a good thing. I am glad that I had some opportunities here and there to work in less-regulated times and places.
When I first went to sea in 1973 I signed onto a “huge” new generation container vessel. She was launched in 1970 with a LBP of 200m, a beam of 31m, a capacity of 1900 teu and a deadweight of 23,000ts. There was no AIS but merely radar monitoring.
Now we are dealing with 400m behemoths with beams of 59m, capacities in excess of 20,000 teu and deadweights in the order of 190,000 ts with less than twice the horsepower that my 1970 built 25kt greyhound was fitted with.
And now……anyone can see exactly what we are doing via an App on their smartphone……just as we have done in this thread. The cloak of anonymity has dissolved.
Marine Transport certainly has evolved. IMHO, professional practices and planning have lagged behind and globally are very piecemeal.
Well said. I had experienced hydraulic systems for remote control of anchor release on Bernhard Schulte vessels ( 1200 - 1700 teu ), btw 1996-2000. This systems as far as i remember also required some preperation and it could not be left in the hands of deck crew and required one junior engineer to set up the system by himself or watch the hands of the bosun carefuly.
The switch over from normal operation to remote required there a bit complicated procedure to make sure all was ready. Once it was reported to master all was ready , then it was powered up on the bridge. The console on the bridge was fairly simple and easy to use but release buttons had plasttic caps guarding against some accidental release.
Generaly nice toy to play with. But…there is always but in it. It required carefull maintenance in the area of forward stations , which were not protected against the weather . Due to lack of regular maintenance due to many reasons the systems generaly atrophied and were not used for long periods
. On almost every handover I was informed system is kaput. But being a pain in the ass and liking the system a lot it was possible to rescusitate it , test it in safe conditions and then use it.
I had an accident ( or near miss) using it , what could result in loss of whole chain and anchor while approaching Tema anchorage and accidentaly discovered, how much luck one needs in this profession . My lesson from this was …never somoke a cigarette while playing with controls of this useful and nice toy. . But this short story will be served later.
It seems like what happened here was that the pilot was a cowboy coming in far too fast. Too fast for the tugs to even make up. Perhaps too fast to get a reverse start.
At this point, we have no idea why the pilot did that: lack of skill and experience; distracted by his girlfriend on the phone; drunk; high on drugs; crazy; heart attack; stroke; or just a colossal screw up.
They say that a very high percentage of serious auto accidents involve excessive speed or drunk driving, or both.
In this case, excessive speed is obvious. The question is why?
In 1978 when I was serving on a Destroyer Squadron staff, the Commanding Officer of one of our ships submitted his post-event report on a Suez Canal passage. He started it with a sentence that I have never forgotten, “I never expect a good pilot, and I am rarely disappointed”.
I’m sure they have all improved with the passing decades.
On passage through the Suez Canal in the early 60’s,in a frigate, the Commanding Officer’s Tiger set out the the CO’s afternoon tea and club sandwich as normal. The pilot dug in and the CO was not amused.
The pilot remained outside the bridge the rest of the transit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk2TCU1ky80.
It is a bit different. Aerial top dressing started in 1940 on steep hill country to encourage grass growth. The planes and loading arrangement was perfected in NZ. The plane usually lands up a hillside so take off uses the gradient to help getting airborne.