Barges (yes multiple barges) and tanker Genesis River collide in Houston Ship Channel

I agree. My instinct would have been to steer right and take the hit on the port side. Keep in mind that there is zero room to stray outside the northbound barge channel just south of the five mile cut at Bulkhead Reef and barge units have run aground there before. That may well have been on the mind of the towboat operator when he saw the Genesis River bearing down on him.
Does anyone have an idea of the draft on the tow unit?

The chart depiction is a bit deceptive. The five mile cut is not a dredging priority and is often barely passable even for a survey launch. The silting reaches much closer to the channel than what is shown here.

Bad call on the tug unless he agreed on two whistles with the ship.

I was thinking of the same possibility, that the pilot on the ship had a steering problem and asked for 2 whistles.

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I don’t think stbd to stbd would be possible as not sufficient water in the barge lanes. In fact don’t know for sure but tug and barge might have been safe just to maintain course in the barge lane even if the tanker had continued across the ship lane. Tanker is drawing 11.2 meters. Only 4 meters in the barge lane.

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It’s all conjecture at this point obviously but if the pilot thought he was headed out the channel anyway due to steering problems, he may have thought he had a chance to avoid a collision if the tow headed asap toward the west side of the channel before he himself reached the barge channel on the east side.
It would be extremely unusual for them to pass on two whistles in that location unless there was a problem.

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I would be surprised there was an agreement for 2 whistles, as Genesis River wouldn’t alter that much to starboard… :thinking:

Mechanical problems are always a possibility but tankers are in general the best maintained vessels … especially a LPG Tanker built in 2018 !

Unless he unexpectedly regained steering.

2 whistle agreement after steering problems on the ship, gone way wrong, is my guess.

The Genesis would have been both regaining the center of the channel after passing the BW Oak and making the turn for the bend. So having to make a fairly substantial turn to port in a narrow channel. Add in the possibilty of sheering off that bank.

I think the possiblity of requesting a stbd to stbd is roughly zero.

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Why would the tug Voyager leave the relative safety of the barge lane to enter and cross the ship lane?

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This is the BW Oak meeting the Genesis River port to port.

At this point the typical “Texas Chicken” manuver would require both ships give stbd rudder and each alter to stbd.

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Once clear to the BW Oak the Genesis river must alter to port around the stern of the BW Oak AND make a turn around the bend.

Here is the next screen shot. Looks like the Genesis River should at this point be steering more to port, she’s headed for the bank.

Yes, it looks likely that the tanker sheared off the bank just off green 75. As to why the towboat operator left the safety of the barge lane is more difficult to explain.

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Well, still making a lot of assumptions. For a couple how much water did the Voyager need and how much water is actually in the barge lane there?

As your diagram illustrates, barge lane controlling depth is 12’ and reports to the contrary are immediately investigated. Several years ago we were called to survey a container which lay along the outside the edge of the northbound barge lane in that location. I don’t recall how it got there but we marked it with floats as it was just below the surface at high water and it was removed a short time later.

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Say what you will but I see a tanker shearing to port and a tow pilot diving to port for a last minute attempt at a 2 whistle meeting which clearly didn’t work.

In fact on second look you can see the tanker sheared to port coming out of that channel dogleg, crossed the channel and sheared again to starboard, striking the Voyager tow who was diving to port.

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It’s apparent in hindsight that turning to port was a bad move on the part of the Tug Voyager but I recall what a pilot in the Panama Canal told me one time.

He said if there was an incident the first question they would ask the pilot is “was the ship under control?” After a grounding or collision there is no good answer to that question.

In this case the tug operator had the tug and barges under control but the other pilot did not have the tanker under control.

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This is NOAA Chart 11327 - Upper Galveston Bay

Soundings in feet. Looks like the barge lane there is about 8 feet. In the first screen shot it looks like the Tug Voyager was in fact in the barge lane.

Here is the first screen shot where the Tug Voyager can be seen.Just passing “74”

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Here is the last screen shot, the ships appear to be colliding - just off the “f” in "Bulkhead Reef:

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You might want to check the pub date. I don’t believe it shows the current depths. My last surveys with the COE were conducted in 2011 so my memory might be faulty but more recent dredging has deepened both the ship and barge lanes.

http://www.galvestonpilots.com/HOGANSACNavigatingtheHoustonShipChannel.pdf

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It’s the 38th edition Mar 2017 corrected to NM 5/7/2019.

The tabulated channel depths are from COE report Feb-Apr 2015, according to the chart.

Don’t if there is more recent info. Be in the NTM.Morgan’s Point.

Eight feet doesn’t sound very deep to me, be of intrest to know how much the tow was drawing. If 8 feet was sufficent depth than the actual depths wouldn’t matter much.

EDIT: According that document from the Galveston pilots the project depths of the barge lanes to Morgan point is 12 feet which would include the area at marker “74”. I don’t know what the actual depths were there. It does appear that the Voyager was in the barge lane.