Panama’s final accident report into the grounding of the newcastlemax bulk carrier Wakashio has been made public:
one can download the report from my drive .
cheers
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Thank you.
The forum’s extensive speculations about the grounding in July 2020 are here >>>
https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/giant-bulker-wakashio-aground-on-reef-off-mauritius/56171
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The report is not well written, difficult to tell what happened. Apparently the planned track had sufficient UKC but the bridge crew did not appreciate how close the track was to grounding hazards which led them not to pay sufficient attention to the ship’s position as it wandered off track.
It should go without saying the bridge watch should maintain a proper watch at all times. That said it’s natural that the watch will sometimes be less vigilant when the perception is that the vessel faces low risk. Which was apparently the case here.
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The official report says fatigue was not an factor because he crew had sufficient rest due to the nature of the voyage (open ocean) but likely crew effectiveness was low because of the length of time the crew had been aboard.
The bosun had jumped overboard a month before the grounding.
From the gcaptain article Wakashio Report Released 3 Years After Grounding in Mauritius
It should also be noted that the incident occurred amid the crew change crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the report points out that the ship’s previous Bosun had jumped overboard a month before the accident, leaving the AB position unfilled due to COVID-19 restrictions after the previous AB was promoted to Bosun.
Yes, that could partly explain the somewhat chaotic behavior of all crew.
The situation at sea was disastrous in mid-2020 comparable to war times, psychologically may be even worse.
During the war, one could think that all this is to protect the family at home, the community and the country.
In mid-2020 it was a war against an invisible deadly enemy, quasi unknown then, that could hit everyone everywhere for unknown reasons.
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This report is a disgrace , it is a joke , it is an insult to seafarers .A sloppy piece of paper work done without due diligence in proper discovery and done solely to fulfill a certain beaurocratic requirement of IMO. And it sort of should scare some , that the new boss of IMO begining Jan 2024 would be Panamanian.
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The Japanese report:
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