Lessons of the Bounty by Andy Chase

Lessons of the Bounty by Andy Chaseat Wooden Boat Magazine. It’s from last November.

From the article:

On the BOUNTY, the goal was a voyage to St. Petersburg, Florida. What was missing was a shared mental model of how best to achieve that goal. The second mate had laid out a voyage plan, but that plan had long since been abandoned. The chief mate’s strategy was to avoid the storm, apparently by staying put. The third mate seemed not to be part of the plan. The captain had a strategy that involved toughing it out and sailing near, or even through, the storm. As a team, there was no common vision of the coming voyage. With no shared model, no one could say for certain when the model was failing.

I found the link at aPANBO post - "Lessons of the BOUNTY - Andy Nails it.

From the comments at the PANBO post, a link to an article in The Tampa Bay Times: The Last Voyage of the Bounty.

Also from the comments of the PANBO article, from Sailing Anarchy Someone’s guilty

Respectfully, I am having trouble envisioning a scenario where a captain is sitting down with a third mate to determine a course of action.

Before I became a mariner, I was in the corporate world. And before that I obtained an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree that both required taking a course called “Organizational Behavior”. After entering the corporate world I spent 20 years working with and for people who had similar degrees and had taken similar organizational behavior courses.

I can say with confidence that the “Organizational Behavior” I learned about in the classroom was a fantasy in the real world. At sea, I have found bridge management to akin to a quarterback calling a play in the huddle. The coach on the sideline and the QB on the field have made a decision and my job is to execute a pre-determined role.

As a green third mate, in my first contract, I was fired for not avoiding some bad weather. And then I was rehired after the folks ashore figured out that I had been the scapegoat for something beyond my control. No “shared mental model” there. Only a “reality model”.

In fact I am having considerable difficulty recalling any “shared mental model” in any environment where someone is the superior and everyone else is a subordinate or a subordinate to a subordinate.

But if my grade depended on it, I could write a freakin thesis about how it works.

In the case of the Bounty the coach on the sideline was nowhere to be found and the quarterback called a play that defied any logic. And had deadly consequences.

If only they had asked the third mate what to do…

Kumbaya

I think Andy has spent too many years in the classroom at MMA teaching Bridge Team Management for large ships, and has lost touch with the practical reality of running a small vessel without a team of professionally trained mariners.

Here is an entire book!


It even has a quote in it from ME on another forum and a review by someone that was on the ship :cool:

Long Story Short: You mainly know what is in the book, but the author had access to the crew and the USCG pilots. The CG went through a LOT to rescue these guys. The crew apparently worshipped the Captain and thought he could do no wrong. It almost reads like a kidnapping; the skipper is going around the storm and everyone is like “OK we’ll go around it” and then he basically aims for a direct hit on it instead :eek: He apparently decided that NOAA was clueless so he would aim for the storm’s projected path because “it was sure to go someplace else”. The much maligned chief engineer wasn’t as bad as you might have thought. He was in WAY over his head, but he kept asking why this didn’t work and that didn’t work and was fairly consistently blown off and told not to worry about it. During the actual storm he was not physically up to doing much of anything. I swear after reading about the 20th time the pumps wouldn’t even work as well as they usually did you could end up thinking they WANTED the damned thing to sink.

[QUOTE=tugsailor;128319]I think Andy has spent too many years in the classroom at MMA, and has completely lost touch with the practical reality of running a real vessel.[/QUOTE]

His analysis of the incident is almost entirely in the context of the IMO playbook on bridge resource management. He uses a great deal of the same language that they use in outlining what they think is appropriate for the management of the safe navigation of a vessel at sea. I don’t think he’s lost touch with anything, especially not after the amount of time he’s spent at sea in his career. I’m not saying you shouldn’t find fault with his analysis, by all means, dig deeper, see what there is in there. I would just suggest doing so with the knowledge that much of it is not just from him, but straight from the IMO.

Not sure how modern CRM applies to a cult-of-personality wooden ship.

Me and the old man always maintain a shared mental model of whatever we do coastwise. Often it goes without much discussion, but its always being tweaked from “normal.” We occasionally adjust the speed to capitalize on daylight, fair tides, visbility, etc. You need not have a formal voyage plan session to maintain one. When the captain wants to be at the sea buoy for daylight and the crew executes it, that’s working with a shared mental model. When we pass along that for forecast has deteriorated overnight and we don’t think pushing a barge will happen and have since started preparing to put it on the wire, we’re sharing that mental model. We pull the chart out to check about an UKC issue, and realize we need to avoid an area to air on the side of caution, same thing, two officers evaluating info and acting on it. Same thing as landing or sailing a barge; often I talk with my AB for even just a minute about plan A and B, anything i may want them to really keep an eye on…sometimes this even happens over the radio…sharing the mental model! When he tells me that it looks like fog will be settling in around 0400 and to be prepared to drop the hook when it drops below a visibility, its not just night orders, its having a working mental model. The IMO BRM guidelines are just guidelines, however formal or informal nearly every safely operated vessel is utilizing these concepts one way or another.

[QUOTE=tugsailor;128319] has lost touch with the practical reality of running a small vessel without a team of professionally trained mariners.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps the the point that should be taken away is that " running a small vessel without a team of professionally trained mariners" when the small vessel is a POS, the crew are closer to cult members than mariners, and the course is directly toward a record setting hurricane, is not a good idea in the first place.

Small boat crews, professionally trained or not, drown in exactly the same manner as any other mariner. You don’t have to sail on or command a Maersk supership to act responsibly and make the type of decisions that Andy described. My take on it is that anyone who believes that small boats should be operated like the Bounty has no business at sea for their own good and those who depend on them. Think like a pro and act like one, don’t make excuses for amateur behavior.

[QUOTE=yacht_sailor;128323]Not sure how modern CRM applies to a cult-of-personality wooden ship.[/QUOTE]

That is a dangerously narrow view of the events that took place in October 2012. I admit that things are done a little differently on an old wooden tall ship but to suggest that modern tactics are irrelevant is short-sighted and uninformed. The bounty and her licensed crew were subject to the same BRM standards as everyone else. The fact that they chose not to stick to them is where modern tactics and the old ship came to diverge, but to say that these guidelines don’t “apply” so a cult-of-personality wooden ship is wholly incorrect.

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[QUOTE=Steamer;128327]Perhaps the the point that should be taken away is that " running a small vessel without a team of professionally trained mariners" when the small vessel is a POS, the crew are closer to cult members than mariners, and the course is directly toward a record setting hurricane, is not a good idea in the first place.

Small boat crews, professionally trained or not, drown in exactly the same manner as any other mariner. You don’t have to sail on or command a Maersk supership to act responsibly and make the type of decisions that Andy described. My take on it is that anyone who believes that small boats should be operated like the Bounty has no business at sea for their own good and those who depend on them. Think like a pro and act like one, don’t make excuses for amateur behavior.[/QUOTE]

I agree, well put.

[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;128328]That is a dangerously narrow view of the events that took place in October 2012. I admit that things are done a little differently on an old wooden tall ship but to suggest that modern tactics are irrelevant is short-sighted and uninformed. The bounty and her licensed crew were subject to the same BRM standards as everyone else. The fact that they chose not to stick to them is where modern tactics and the old ship came to diverge, but to say that these guidelines don’t “apply” so a cult-of-personality wooden ship is wholly incorrect.[/QUOTE]

The biggest issue there was the captain who had an unhealthy relationship with the vessel itself, and denied reality of its condition and capabilities. Fact that he had sailed through crappy weather before was no excuse to do it again. I will not question the crew in the same context, but the captain was not thinking rationally at this point. This conclusion of mine is derived from several sources I know, many of which knew him, are/were sailing vessel masters, and may or not may not have written articles on this very subject!

If your crew mainly learned to sail on your boat and they regard you as an incredible master of all things maritime, asking their opinion is pretty much useless since they think whatever you want them to think :rolleyes:

In other words, they were fk-ed WAY beyond what a little crew pow-wow was going to fix.

[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;128328]That is a dangerously narrow view of the events that took place in October 2012. I admit that things are done a little differently on an old wooden tall ship but to suggest that modern tactics are irrelevant is short-sighted and uninformed. The bounty and her licensed crew were subject to the same BRM standards as everyone else. The fact that they chose not to stick to them is where modern tactics and the old ship came to diverge, but to say that these guidelines don’t “apply” so a cult-of-personality wooden ship is wholly incorrect.

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I agree, well put.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=PMC;128316]Respectfully, I am having trouble envisioning a scenario where a captain is sitting down with a third mate to determine a course of action.

Before I became a mariner, I was in the corporate world. And before that I obtained an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree that both required taking a course called “Organizational Behavior”. After entering the corporate world I spent 20 years working with and for people who had similar degrees and had taken similar organizational behavior courses.

I can say with confidence that the “Organizational Behavior” I learned about in the classroom was a fantasy in the real world. At sea, I have found bridge management to akin to a quarterback calling a play in the huddle. The coach on the sideline and the QB on the field have made a decision and my job is to execute a pre-determined role.

As a green third mate, in my first contract, I was fired for not avoiding some bad weather. And then I was rehired after the folks ashore figured out that I had been the scapegoat for something beyond my control. No “shared mental model” there. Only a “reality model”.

In fact I am having considerable difficulty recalling any “shared mental model” in any environment where someone is the superior and everyone else is a subordinate or a subordinate to a subordinate.

But if my grade depended on it, I could write a freakin thesis about how it works.

In the case of the Bounty the coach on the sideline was nowhere to be found and the quarterback called a play that defied any logic. And had deadly consequences.

If only they had asked the third mate what to do…

Kumbaya[/QUOTE]

A good example of BRM is the Cosco Busan. The plan was (or should have been) to pass under the Bay Bridge between the towers. Instead the pilot steered the ship into a tower. Had there been a track-line on the ECDIS or chart, everyone would have been on the same page (shared mental model) and when the ship appeared not to be following that track (which is exactly what caused the C.G. VTS to speak up) someone could have or should have spoken up and asked WTF…

The pilot is obviously not going to ask the third mate what to do but the third mate can certainly look at an ECDIS display and determine if the ship is on track or not.

With the Bounty incident I agree that the captain is not going to sit down with the third mate to determine a course of action. However once a some kind of plan has been made it should be laid out in such a fashion that other officers can evaluate and question it. Once the plan has been put into action it needs to be monitored and if the plan is going off track the officers need to speak up.

My experience sailing as a junior officer is much the same as yours. When I first sailed third mate I already had considerable experience both on deck and in the wheelhouse as mate on tugs and other smaller vessels. A majority of the deep-sea academy senior officers had their heads too far up their ass to take advantage of my experience.

IIRC the captain DID announce a plan to go AROUND the storm before leaving the dock. If the book is correct, no one knew he was going to head right for it until it was far too late to do anything about it.

I’m not inclined to revisit old threads to refresh my recollection, but as I recall only one of the “mates” had any significant experience sailing a square rigger (all on BOUNTY), and the other “mates” had little or none. In fact, they had very limited experience of any kind. Under those circumstances, how could they possibly have a basis to form a shared “mental model.” They lacked the experience to “model” anything or to question the “model” put before them. However, as inexperienced as most of the crew was, if the captain had announced a pre-voyage plan to sail right through the middle of the storm, most of the crew would have been smart enough to go ashore while they still had a chance. Instead, the captain hoodwinked the crew in thinking he was going to go around the storm, and then instead secretly and intentionally steered right for the storm. We will never know whether that was his plan all along, or if he changed the plan at sea.

A voyage plan for a small vessel that cannot hold a consistent course and speed in all weather that is apt to be encountered, especially where the voyage is over a week long, is at best a moving target. That voyage plan will probably require many revisions as actual events unfold and new weather forecasts are received. Don’t become a slave to a “mental model” that looked ok on paper a few days ago while in port. Good judgement and the mental flexibility to intelligently adapt to changing circumstances is essential.

Some experienced mates are invaluable in helping to form a good shared “mental model” of a voyage, but other mates have to be told not to get too “mental,” and to just follow the captain’s “model.”

[QUOTE=yacht_sailor;128330]If your crew mainly learned to sail on your boat and they regard you as an incredible master of all things maritime, asking their opinion is pretty much useless since they think whatever you want them to think :rolleyes:

In other words, they were fk-ed WAY beyond what a little crew pow-wow was going to fix.[/QUOTE]

The point of the article is what lessons we can learn not what could they have done differently. But I still don’t necessarily agree that a “little crew pow-wow” as you dismissively put it couldn’t have changed the outcome.

Transferring hand-waving onto charts is a powerful tool to trap errors and reveal wishful thinking. Say someone at that meeting insisted that the plans be charted out. That may have caused some reaction, even a subtle one that might have changed the dynamics to a degree that someone on the fence about going might decide not to go. I imagine there was a lot of unease, how much would it have taken to turn that unease into action?

I agree. I try and do these things (remember BRM started as CRM in the flying world where I learned it :wink: ) I just don’t see THIS crew having a sudden conversion.
Try this: I was caught out once long ago by a hurricane. Around sunset I told the crew we were getting beat to death trying to get upwind and get away from it, so we decided to duck into a sheltered creek before it really hit hard. Everyone thought it was a good plan and we got to sleep at anchor instead of farting around in no viz at night. But…say I suddenly had the urge to see the eye and turned around and flew dowwind right at it. By the time the rest of them figured out I had gone nuts we may have had no option but to carry on.

[QUOTE=yacht_sailor;128320]Here is an entire book!


It even has a quote in it from ME on another forum and a review by someone that was on the ship :cool:

Long Story Short: You mainly know what is in the book, but the author had access to the crew and the USCG pilots. The CG went through a LOT to rescue these guys. The crew apparently worshipped the Captain and thought he could do no wrong. It almost reads like a kidnapping; the skipper is going around the storm and everyone is like “OK we’ll go around it” and then he basically aims for a direct hit on it instead :eek: He apparently decided that NOAA was clueless so he would aim for the storm’s projected path because “it was sure to go someplace else”. The much maligned chief engineer wasn’t as bad as you might have thought. He was in WAY over his head, but he kept asking why this didn’t work and that didn’t work and was fairly consistently blown off and told not to worry about it. During the actual storm he was not physically up to doing much of anything. I swear after reading about the 20th time the pumps wouldn’t even work as well as they usually did you could end up thinking they WANTED the damned thing to sink.[/QUOTE]

Reading it right now on Kindle. Good read.

[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;128331]A good example of BRM is the Cosco Busan. The plan was (or should have been) to pass under the Bay Bridge between the towers. Instead the pilot steered the ship into a tower. Had there been a track-line on the ECDIS or chart, everyone would have been on the same page (shared mental model) and when the ship appeared not to be following that track (which is exactly what caused the C.G. VTS to speak up) someone could have or should have spoken up and asked WTF…

The pilot is obviously not going to ask the third mate what to do but the third mate can certainly look at an ECDIS display and determine if the ship is on track or not.

With the Bounty incident I agree that the captain is not going to sit down with the third mate to determine a course of action. However once a some kind of plan has been made it should be laid out in such a fashion that other officers can evaluate and question it. Once the plan has been put into action it needs to be monitored and if the plan is going off track the officers need to speak up.

My experience sailing as a junior officer is much the same as yours. When I first sailed third mate I already had considerable experience both on deck and in the wheelhouse as mate on tugs and other smaller vessels. A majority of the deep-sea academy senior officers had their heads too far up their ass to take advantage of my experience.[/QUOTE]

When you say you brought experience with you to the ship as a new third mate, what kind of experience was this? Was it the sort of experience that could benefit the senior officers you sailed with? I would say they were probably MORE experienced than you at the time just by virtue of their tenure in the profession.
I have noticed that a lot of mates from the focsle carry quite a bit of animosity and disdain for their schoolship counterparts in any rank. Why is this I wonder?

[QUOTE=pelicanhook;128586]When you say you brought experience with you to the ship as a new third mate, what kind of experience was this? Was it the sort of experience that could benefit the senior officers you sailed with? I would say they were probably MORE experienced than you at the time just by virtue of their tenure in the profession. [/QUOTE]

When I was a seaman on a cutter in the Coast Guard I leaned the positions of helmsman and lookout. I also participated on deck taking vessels under tow in bad weather.When I became a quartermaster stationed in Alaska I leaned to keep a nav plot using radar and visual bearings in restricted waters and DR, LORAN C, fathometer and RDF in open waters. When I sailed as first mate on a small uninspected freighter I learned to navigate the Inside Passage and the Alaskan Peninsular by eye without a formal plot and how to deal with F/V, tug and cruise ship traffic, again by eye without ARPA… On the same vessel I also began learning ship-handling as I often took the ship into various Alaskan ports put it alongside, moored and started cargo while the captain was below. I later sailed mate on tugs, mostly up the Inside Passage and in Alaska, I learned a little about towing and how to “read the water” for currents.

Crossing the Gulf of Alaska and running in the Bering Sea and out the Aleutians in winter I got experience in heavy weather. There are tricks to be learned transferring cargo from ship to ship offshore

One thing I didn’t learn is the deck / engine animosity that is evidently taught at the academies. For one on the smaller vessels it doesn’t exist as it obvious that we depend upon each other and for another I am a bit of a shade tree mechanic so can really appreciate the skills good engineers bring to the table.

My first deep-sea job as third mate was with MSC, my first captain was a hawspiper… He coached me, corrected some errors I made, for example going through the San Bernardino Strait the first time at first I did not take into account advance because I had never conned such a big (600+ft) fast (19 + kts) ship before. etc.

Later I began to run into a few mariners that were strictly open ocean pilot to pilot and couldn’t deal with traffic or restricted waterways. This was a surprise to me.

At first I did have disdain for the brain-dead mates and the micro-managing no-skill captains but later I learned to hide it. Now I try to get the most out of the crew regardless and mostly I try not to prejudge anyone.

KC,

You sound like an accomplished sailor and I would likely welcome you as part of my crew. That being said, I am always worried about any new 3M who “learned it all on his last ship”. Are there 3Ms who could teach a skipper a thing or two? Yes. I also know guys with more coffee time than I have sea time who can’t stand a watch. Do a good job in your position and experience and capability will quickly become apparent. Just remember that some of us “school guys” went to the academy after coming up on fishing boats or other limited tonnage vessels. There are idiots in our ranks but this industry tends to weed them out. I hope I don’t qualify as a “micro-managing no-skill captain.” I guess the new 3M could tell me.