Container giant 'Mumbai Maersk' aground at German Wadden Island

Maritime News
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  1. approaching this particular pilot station vsl is in VHF touch with VTS . Close to pilot stn (abt 1.5-2Nm) VTS instructs the vsl to directly contact P.S. on another VHF channel for confirmation of pilot boarding time and pilot boarding arrangements including safe boarding speed/heading.

Regret to say , that at least on two occasions in the past , info from pilot stn forced us to dug our heels in the mud to stop her, what resulted in Cheng furious calls from ECR and once , “U” turn was the only option, although rather dangerous, due to outbound and following traffic and different then ideal visibility conditions. Smaller vessel though (300/42/13.5) mtrs can pump some adrenaline into your system too and we used paper charts, although ecdis was fitted.

  1. My speculation: due to reasons mentioned in item 1) bridge team(master + 3rd mate+ quartermaster) have lost completely situational awareness , what was compounded probably by wrong ecdis settings.

Have always claimed , that paper charts offer " what you see is what you get" package, while ecdis gives " what you see, is what you know how to get it" .

Hence the team could not see the danger, they were heading to (Wakashio) , despite built in features in ecdis allowing to " interrogate" objects by clicking on them . Close to LW one must be crazy to leave safe water channel with their draft, especially when two boys( not exactly cardinnal) clearly indicate, where the safe water is.

Interrogation of the two boys with the mouse click could reveal what they mean and why. Regret to observe , that “nintendo” generation rarely shows interest in visual aids to navigation and eyeballing seems a long forgotten art , what probably prevented them from seeing these two boys on their port bow prior grounding.

  1. Third option, although also highly speculative is that , their voyage plan was thicker then Pilot Book, Tide tables and List of lights combined for given area, containing too much details on environmental issues, so the contingency plan for “point of no return” got lost in the creative verbiage so enjoyed by PSC German officers during inspections in BRH and/or HAM. :wink:

  2. 4th option : deliberate action but i am not sure if madness or state of complete oblivion can be deliberate.
    Cheers.

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