Anybody have any other info on this incident? Suprised I didn’t see it already posted on here.
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It was only a matter of time with the cowboy shit in the Houston ship channel. Although it was impressive to see see way they run this channel over the years, it was cowboy shit.
I think I got some grey hair just watching the AIS replay. That is NUTS!
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Same. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this situation making turns in the Houston ship channel, same thing making bends in the river.
A Houston pilot told me one time that they have something on the order of 60 ship movements per day, but over 300 tug and barge movements at the same time. They certainly gain a comfortability with close quarters situations, but I spent way too many transits in and out of that port, puckered up, and nervous. It is something else when the wind starts to blow or the fog sets in.
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Don’t think there’s many towboaters on gcaptain. Has been my experience incidents like this are kinda “not talked about” in the industry. As a towboat wheelman going on my 5th issue this year….my opinion, this could have been avoided by decisions of all three captains before and during the situation, it’ll be interesting to hear the recording of the vhf when it’s released. Sad someone lost their life.
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IMO the danger in “texas chicken” is a bit overstated - but great PR for the Houston Pilots. You have a lot going for you in these meetings - the most important one is you know the person on the other ship, you know they know how to do this, and you have great communications with them. Secondly the hydraulics are very much in your favor, and pretty predictable. Lastly - the port generally shuts down in bad weather, low vis conditions - you generally get to do this in good conditions.
The biggest danger of collision in the HSC, IMO has always been overtaking tows just outside the channel. Thankfully, most of these collisions are low relative energy - and look more like 2 vessels coming together - sadley this is no the case here.
Interesting to see the results of the investigation - but it looks to me at first glance like the tow could have picked a better place to be overtaken - wondering if there was agreement between the 2 pilots and the tow capt of where they would all meet.
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Another follow-up video from Sal.
Looks like Miss Peggy was struck more or less from dead astern and then went down the port side of the ship.
And Sal wants to blame the collision on a Chinese Captain who may or may not speak very good English.
This one is on the pilot. I’d like to hear the VHF recording - it’s out there somewhere.
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I believe my statement was more nuanced than that.
I talked about a language issue on the sistership Yangze 6 in Wilmington and if the pilot had to deal with a similar issue, it could have hindered his/her navigation of the ship.
There were multiple ships involved and we wont have all the information until the USCG and NTSB complete an investigation.
My concern was that there was no official statement by the Coast Guard and no mention of Miss Peggy being invovled in a collision at all.
I also wanted to highlight the overloaded work of the USCG in Port State inspections and the issues associated with aging ships and difficulty in communicating with the crews.
Thanks…Sal
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I ran that channel for 5 or so years. There is never at time I recall that a ship would reduce speed until I agreed to a passage.
The pilots there assumed they always had the right of way. They cared not how close to you they were.
Law of the jungle: the bigger guy has the right of way.
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Do they? Are the tugs and tows shallow draft enough to not be “confined to the channel”? If everyone is confined to the channel, wouldn’t it revert to the overtaking vessel is give-way?
In my experiance - the main thing the pilots cared about when over taking tows was how close YOU guys were to them !!
The tows in HSC can, in general operate just outside the channel - they tend to stay just outside the beacons by a beam or so
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The problem with the HSC is that about 30% of the pilots are complete asshats. I’m master of a large hopper dredge and we work the HSC several months just about every year, and it’s ALWAYS the same thing. I communicate with traffic and request “no meeting or overtaking” if we are working above Redfish, doesn’t matter, some of the pilots simply ignore it. It’s not ALL of them, in fact several HSC pilots come from dredges (I used to work with some of them). There is a subculture among the HSC pilots that is pure cowboy, plain and simple. I’ve had good conversations with the president of the association, as we always have a pre dredge meeting with the COE, USCG Traffic, & the HSC pilots, but the deckplate subculture is still there.
By comparison there is an entirely new bunch of pilots in SWP of the Miss River (another place we work for many months each year), and they have made a marked change in their policy. The SWP pilots will not meet or overtake at the dredge, and will alter speed or ask us to adjust to accommodate a safe passage. Now SWP is MUCH wider than the HSC, and while it is not quite as busy as the HSC, it still gets REALLY busy. It’s just a matter of how you look at safety.
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Only tows outside the beacons are small deck barges or tows aground…very few places a tow should be operating outside the beacons in the HSC. Definitely not where the incident happened. Not to say they can’t be right on the beacons taking paint samples, but not outside….not red flags.
thanks - memory fails me again !!
So if my my tugboat can’t go outside the channel, aren’t I stand-on when overtaken by someone else who can’t go out of the channel either? We are both stuck in there, right?
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There’s barge lanes in the Houston Ship Channel. Inside the beacon, but like 12’ draft so the barges can be there and the ship can’t be there. I don’t know if they are where the accident occurred.
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