If anybody have the time and interest:
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I searched for the final report without a result. Have you seen it somewhere?
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It’s a report about a report
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Same.
Lots of reports about the release by the Panama Maritime Authorities but no release found on their web site:
https://www.amp.gob.pa/
Here is the latest release I can find:
https://www.amp.gob.pa/noticias/notas-de-prensa/comunicado-14/
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By Daniel Wood
Jun 30, 2023Share
More than two years later, the final investigation into one of the Suez Canal’s most costly maritime disasters is complete. According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the report into the grounding of the Ever Given container ship will be uploaded to its publicly accessible database in the coming days.
An investigating official with the flag state, Panama, told Insurance Business the report was completed “a while ago.”
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More detailed article here:
Panama notes that on at least two occasions the master of the Ever Given intervened, changing the pilot’s orders for rudder position. Panama notes the pilot was ordering the rudder from hard to port to hard to starboard, never to midships and not giving the helmsman a course to steer to.
Spowiednick,
You did well to locate that report.
Interesting that two SCA RON’s, not guidelines but rules, were broken ie speed and escort tugs. Untethered escort tugs will barely keep up with a vessel transiting at 12 knots let alone be able to work against it to control sheer. Two tethered tugs right aft working indirect and direct would have a massive capability to both control headway and sheer.
It begs the question as to what simulation SCA has undertaken, if any, regarding ULCV’s in different meteorological events whilst transiting.
I thought the report was one line.
“its too big to transit on a windy day”
The interesting thing about this report is the direction and sustained relative wind speeds at different stages. In the early entry stages (vessel STW 7knots) when the wind was forward/abaft/ on the starboard beam sustained wind peaked at 20 knots. For the 16 minutes prior to grounding with peak sustained relative wind speed at 28 knots the relative direction was well, if not directly, astern indicating that lateral wind displacements/leeway would have been minimised but this is where the primary Pilot significantly increased speed allied with extreme helm orders with resultant hydrodynamic outcomes.
Not much shiphandling finesse being demonstrated.
The ship appears to have gotten into a situation where she was going “bank to bank”… sheering hard off one side and slowly recovering so that she was close to the opposite bank and then taking a sheer in the opposite direction.
In that situation the only appropriate rudder orders are well timed amidships and hard over orders to attempt to dampen the oscillations. The idea that giving a specific course to the helmsman to steer when a ship is being overwhelmed by successive episodes of bank effect effect is just silly.
The idea that a ship is off course when not in the centerline of a winding narrow channel is also silly. Experienced pilots use their position in the channel and the resulting bank effect to maneuver around bends easily. It is routine.
Squat seems to have been included as a contributing factor without any understanding of its effects in shallow water. No mention is made of the nature of the material at the bottom of the channel which would have a large influence on the squat effect.
Most importantly there appears to have been no effort to gauge the relative maneuverability of the ship. Vessels vary wildly in their steering abilities. If the Ever Given had a low rating in this respect it would have greatly influenced her ability to recover from a bank sheer. If the ship had performed a zig zag test as part of her sea trials that information might have been crucial to determining cause. Healthy rudder effect makes all the difference in these situations.
My impression is that the investigation was conducted by people with a lot of book knowledge and only limited actual experience of poor handling ships in narrow channels.
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I don’t think anyone who has transited The Suez Canal will be the least bit surprised by this report.
By heck do I feel for the Bridge Crew, in fact not just The Bridge Crew but the entire Crew, Management and ownership of this poor vessel.
In my experience BSM were a damn good bunch of Ship Managers.
The fact that Suez Canal Authority did not co operate with this enquiry speaks volumes.
While deferring to 118 with his much greater knowledge of how ships behave in confined channels I must add my 2 penneth or 2 cents if you like.
I have conned and berthed multiple hundreds of ULCS and they do handle like a proverbial council brick. Having said that there is little difference between them and a MCC or large tanker except for the speed.
I regularly conned ULCS in a 2 way 300m wide channel with some fairly large course changes.
We planned not to meet at critical points but passing 2 ULCS was always challenging.
The vast majority of helmsman were very competent of any nationality and actually quite proud of their ability to keep these monsters under control . So a course order was usually nessesary unless we needed a larger rate of turn when I would then give a helm order followed by a course to steady on. Watching the RTI all the time.Remember we were probably traveling at Full Ahead or even 10 mins notice at this time. Major helm orders were usually reserved for the Manoeuvring phase.
The Masters of these monsters were equally competent in my experience and were not shy in questioning my decisions but then I/ We did encourage this relationship with the Bridge Crew.
The whanging of the rudder from one side to another with no break would not fill me with confidence, in fact the second pilot cautioned against it several times according to the translation.
Reading back my post before pressing send.
We only did high speed in areas where there was more room.
The passing of 2 ULCS in a 300m wide channel was done with much more respect for speed interaction and bank effect.
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Fully Agree with most of comments regarding pilot helm orders etc.
I beleive that F.O.C. investigation wanted to draw the readers attention away from gross negligence fact on the vessel part > That specific vessel under such conditions was in first instance simply “Inherently Dynamically Unstable” and use of thethered escort tug(s) aft was “Condition Sine Qua None”. . i.e. the similar size/type Cosco vessel with escort tug aft tranzited the canal in same convoy/conditions with no problems.