Collision: Vessel ‘Astrosprinter’ and Sailing Ship ‘Nr 5 Elbe’ – Final Report

[Urs]

At last, two years after the collision, the German Federal Board of Maritime Casualty Investigation published the voluminous Final Investigation Report about:
The collision of the traditional sailing ship ‘No.5 Elbe’ with the container ship ‘Astrosprinter’; on the river Elbe (Germany), on June 8, 2019.

The Interim Report of June 2020, mandatory after one year of investigation, did just say that the Draft Final Report was already sent to the concerned parties for comments.

Two years of ‘investigation’ for a collision on a German river, between a German boat, owned by a public foundation of Hamburg, and a Cyprus flagged vessel, owned and operated by a German company from just some miles down on the Elbe River.

There must have been important objections from the affected administrations. The bureaucrats do not like to become responsible, and they have the means (the taxpayer’s money) to procrastinate things…

Former forum discussions:
2019, about the collision (87 #)
2020, about the Interim Report (57 #)

The ‘Astrosprinter’ had just some scratched paint.
The ‘Number 5 Elbe’ was refloated with sponsons, went into a local yard for temporary repairs and for removal of all equipment and rigging, and then was towed to Hamburg, where she was loaded on a ship and sent to the wooden-hull-specialist ‘Hvide Sande Shipyard’ in Denmark, on October 23, 2019.
On October 7, 2020, the repaired hull was towed back to Hamburg, where she is still being outfitted with her historic rigging and interiors.

Final report in German language is here (233 pages) >>>
Final Report in German language
Only for the few German reading users, I will post the link to the English translation after its publication.

Very concentrated:
They have about the same conclusions as our speculations were in this forum.

During the U-turn to return up-river to Hamburg, a fore sail was destroyed.
Then, everybody run to the bow or run useless around, while forgetting that they were now on the false side of the fairway; and nobody looked at the down-river traffic.
In the last minutes, the order ‘hard to port’ was given… and the tiller was pushed to port… that was the end.

[Urs]

Somehow, the publication of the report’s English translation escaped my weekly follow up of new publications. Sorry!

Here is the report’s translation into English (the annexes, after p115, stay in German) >>>

Investigation_Report_211_19.pdf

The report reads like a list of ‘Absolutely-Never-Do’ examples. Heavily edited and smoothed by lawyers from the concerned (and co-responsible) administrations. However, for once, a court may have difficulties to find the smallest co-responsibility of the vessel ‘Astrosprinter’.

In my personal view, the incident is related to the tiller (p76):
In 1930, when the boat came to the USA, a wheel commanded rudder, for safety reasons, replaced the tiller.
In 2002, when the boat came back to Hamburg, the wheel was replaced back to the original non-assisted wooden tiller, for purely historic reasons…

The minimum save manning was 2 persons, the captain and a deckhand (p98).
As seen in the published video, to give an immediate hard rudder, more than three persons were needed to move the tiller hard over (neglecting their confusion between moving the tiller to one board and turning the boat to the same board…).
There was just nobody left to look at the traffic and to oversee the manoeuvre…