Risk Management / Skills and Culture

Professional Mariner Forum
1

The idea that risk management is always a choice between acceptable risk and unacceptable risk, the idea that one can always err on the side of caution is an oversimplification.

Take the 1-2-3 Rule which we have been discussing; would the navigator who applies the rule in mid-latitudes in open ocean when all models are in agreement in the exact same way he does when working coastwise in lower latitudes when steering forces are weak and all models disagree greatly a prudent mariner or just an unskilled one?

Or take the question of rolling in beam seas which has also been disscused, if the chief calls the captain and tells him he wants to shut down the main engine and to contiue to run it risks a fire. What if the captain refuses to do so because he fears rolling in beam seas but the wave peroid is 8 secs and the ships rolling peroid is 14 seconds? Again prudent or unskilled?

2

it goes without saying that with a ship in mortal danger of being lost then ANY risk to save it is warranted. Here is where the element of experience, age and judgement of the master comes into play. You need that man at the top of the pile to have the best possible decision making ability. The lives of all other souls on the ship depend of that.

I had initially feared that EL FARO’s master was young as I was young when I placed the GALAXY into unacceptable danger. I was relieved to discover that not to be the case however I then immediately switched to the train of thought…“what the HELL was a man of his experience thinking? Why did he not know better?”. This was with regards to his choice of track. What ever compelled him to not use the Old Bahamas Channel even with uncertainty that Joachim might cross the Bahama chain and enter that passage? Should that have happened, the ship could have stopped its southerly progress and then waited for the storm to leave the area.

Regarding a master taking risk for commercial considerations for the owner’s benefit? Well everyone here seems to be against my call to make a master criminally liable. I do not see that liability to be for punitive purposed but to give him a very, very strong reason to tell owners “NO…I am not going to prison for your profits!” Every other master who the owners might call to take the risk need also to tell them the very same thing until every person in the industry has told the owners to pound sand! SOLIDARITY CAN BE OUR SALVATION!

3

[QUOTE=c.captain;171384]it goes without saying that with a ship in mortal danger of being lost then ANY risk to save it is warranted. Here is where the element of experience, age and judgement of the master comes into play. You need that man at the top of the pile to have the best possible decision making ability. The lives of all other souls on the ship depend of that.

I had initially feared that EL FARO’s master was young as I was young when I placed the GALAXY into unacceptable danger. I was relieved to discover that not to be the case however I then immediately switched to the train of thought…“what the HELL was a man of his experience thinking? Why did he not know better?”. This was with regards to his choice of track. What ever compelled him to not use the Old Bahamas Channel even with uncertainty that Joachim might cross the Bahama chain and enter that passage? Should that have happened, the ship could have stopped its southerly progress and then waited for the storm to leave the area.

Regarding a master taking risk for commercial considerations for the owner’s benefit? Well everyone here seems to be against my call to make a master criminally liable. I do not see that liability to be for punitive purposed but to give him a very, very strong reason to tell owners “NO…I am not going to prison for your profits!” Every other master who the owners might call to take the risk need also to tell them the very same thing until every person in the industry has told the owners to pound sand! SOLIDARITY CAN BE OUR SALVATION![/QUOTE]

Criminal liability in our very uneven and unpredictable criminal system is a very blunt instrument at best. We are a society with far too many people in the criminal system for insufficient reasons, with no way to renter society successfully. People with enough money to mount a vigorous defense tend not to be prosecuted or convicted, and if they are they get light sentences. People who cannot afford a strong defense (like most Mariners) tend to be prosecuted and go to prison. The police and prosecutors tend to pick the low hanging fruit.

The criminalization of going to sea is already way out of hand.

For example, remember the recent prosecution and huge fines in the US against a foreign flag ship that dumped a few EMPTY hydraulic oil drums at sea somewhere during a voyage from Costa Rica to the US? While the vast majority of the oil that ends up in the sea leaks out of automobiles on land.

Too many things have been criminalized. Do you really trust the Government to get this right?

4

One thing that Mario said; No one ever turns around. If that’s true then a system that depends on people deciding to turn around is a bad one. Remember half the captains out there are below average. Take into account human behavior the answer is shore-based weather routing. Can’t afford to lose a ship and can’t afford to rule out vast areas of safe waters because we lack the skill to judge. Or worse still, lack the skill while believing we posess it.

5

[QUOTE=tugsailor;171386]Too many things have been criminalized. Do you real trust the Government to get this right?[/QUOTE]

what I am saying is that the master needs to have a great fear of taking actions to please his owners but more importantly, I call for criminal statutes the owners are liable to face be strengthened more so than those a master would ever face. To coerce a master to take actions he feels jeopardize the safety of the ship and crew he serves should have even greater potential penalty to the owners. Prison and unlimited punitive damages need to be in the mind of ANY shipowner or his servants as they contemplate TELLING the master what he MUST do to serve their desires.

Further, a master should be protected from retaliation by owners for dropping the dime on them to those who would criminally enforce the statutes. He should have no fear at all to do the right thing. He should be able to collect damages great enough that nobody can ever touch him during the remainder of his life.

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[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;171388]One thing that Mario said; No one ever turns around. If that’s true then a system that depends on people deciding to turn around is a bad one. Remember half the captains out there are below average. Take into account human behavior the answer is shore-based weather routing. Can’t affort to lose a ship and can’t afford to rule out vast areas of safe waters because we lack the skill to judge. Or worse still, lack the skill while believing we posess it.[/QUOTE]

we don’t turn around not need to…what we do it hold and wait be it in a shelter, to steam in circles, drift or to heave to but what we do is to stop and not proceed until the danger abates

6

[QUOTE=c.captain;171389]

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we don’t turn around not need to…what we do it hold and wait be it in a shelter, to steam in circles, drift or to heave to but what we do is to stop and not proceed until the danger abates[/QUOTE]

No, that’s not what we do. That’s what we say we do. Actully what we do is; we fear that we’ve just spend the last 24 hours steaming the wrong direction due to our misjudgment, we realize that the system has stalled and it will be days before it clears. We also know that the companies other ship just hours ago made the transit across the path. We have a powerful ship made for rough waters with no history of engine problems and loaded with JAX lashed cargo. If we need it we apply a little wishful thinking, the risk is only slightly elevated and if we lose 48 hours our reputation as a skiled captain, the thing we depend on to get paid, will suffer. And so forth. All this stuff is well known. As mentioned, the KLM flight at Tenerife.

7

[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;171395]No, that’s not what we do. [/QUOTE]

well you are right that stopping is “generally” not what we do and that “generally” we do keep forging ahead but we SHOULD stop and I have stopped in Alaska to wait for weather to pass when it was necessary to and luckily I had owners who had no problem with me doing that. One night I should have stopped but didn’t…I have had no qualms at all to say in that case I failed as master but fortune smiled and I and my ship and all aboard her did not die like those on the EL FARO, but it so very easily could have if we had a machinery casualty which was a very real possibility I did not take into account. I am not a master who believes in his infallibility…I am very fallible because I am a human being.

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added that is those masters who believe themselves infallible who are the ones who lose their ships and kill people. Did EL FARO’s master believe himself to be infallible? We will never know because he died. All we have is what we have which is that he forged ahead steadily steaming closer to the center of circulation of a very powerful hurricane. We will be discussing our conjecture why he did this for many years to come.

8

No owner wants a master to take unnecessary risks. But if the master insists on using some crude rule of thumb like staying 300 miles from the center that master should be fired. Not because he reuses to take unnecessary risk but because he has a poor understanding of risk management and hurricane avoidance.

On the JAX to SJU run your competitors will eat your lunch, not by taking more risks but by being smarter about it.

9

There’s the rub: define “skilled.”

There has never been any general consensus for this. Plenty of good, even great, boat or ship-handlers amongst us. That relatively narrow skill set usually takes precedence (at least in mariner’s minds) when it comes to the establishment of pecking orders and bragging rights, which is really stupid.

Brett Favre was a very bold and skilled quarterback who won many games, 2 NFC Championships and a Super Bowl. He was admired and emulated by many. But he also got picked off a lot (holds the Packers record for it), and lost winnable games and even more potential championships because of that very same unbridled boldness. But until he couldn’t play anymore there was always “next season.”

Well, if we let boldness or wishful thinking routinely get the better of us and make a bad call at the wrong time and place there will never be a “next season” for us or the people who’s safety we’re entrusted with and responsible for. You only have to get picked off once and everyone’s done.

El Faro’s captain thought they could see the end zone through Crooked Island Passage and made a run for it. But they tore a hamstring and pulled up lame at the worst possible moment. Then a middle linebacker with surprising speed named Joaquin moved in for the devastating tackle. Game over.

Except it wasn’t a game. Somebody else mentioned it earlier on another thread: any voyage plan that contains the words “this’ll work as long as nothing goes wrong” is a sure sign that you’re really screwing up badly, even if you make it without a scratch.

Trying to satisfy that professional ego leads to trouble. Sometimes the only thing you need is the ability and discipline to recognize a bad bet and cut your losses while you still can: drop back 10 and punt.

Knowing when to slow down, stop or even (gasp!) turn around is, in fact, a skill.

10

[QUOTE=captjacksparrow;171430]There’s the rub: define “skilled.”

There has never been any general consensus for this. Plenty of good, even great, boat or ship-handlers amongst us. That relatively narrow skill set usually takes precedence (at least in mariner’s minds) when it comes to the establishment of pecking orders and bragging rights, which is really stupid.[/QUOTE]

I’ve observed the same thing. The engineers sometimes make the same error. They love a skilled machinist. I had an older guy promoted to 1 A/E. Many tales were told about his prowess with a lathe, tools fabricated with scrap metal etc, but he couldn’t manage the work in the engine room. Or he wouldn’t leave the machine shop long enough to do it. The other (new) Chief and the Jr engineers loved him but the eng department was going to hell. We managed to get rid of him but the chief and I had to explain to a lot of people, repeatedly, that the job was 1/AE not chief machinist. A person who is a good welder but has no other skills will fool a lot of people as well.

11

The problem with all the good options; slowing down, turning around, not leaving in the first place, is that it’s generally impossible to prove you were prudent rather than overly cautious. The rare time you can prove it would be if you bailed, and your relief had a catastrophe, or you protested, the office said go, and you had a catastrophe.

Third party weather routing is a good idea, and we use it in the oilfield. I’ve also used it towing where they provided a forecast for your route twice per day, and it was very accurate. If you at least required this, it would give the master another tool, and a good reason to delay, turn around, etc.

If you really want to tune things up, require the LDPA, to have command experience on board. At least you’d have some hope he or she had some idea what you’re dealing with.

As far as making the master criminally liable, are you completely out of your mind? No. Full stop. You’ll have DA’s with an agenda trying to toss Captains in jail to make some point. If you want to put the fear into somebody, it needs to be the owners. The more disincentive they have to push the masters to take risks, the better.

QUOTE=captjacksparrow;171430]There’s the rub: define “skilled.”

There has never been any general consensus for this. Plenty of good, even great, boat or ship-handlers amongst us. That relatively narrow skill set usually takes precedence (at least in mariner’s minds) when it comes to the establishment of pecking orders and bragging rights, which is really stupid.

Brett Favre was a very bold and skilled quarterback who won many games, 2 NFC Championships and a Super Bowl. He was admired and emulated by many. But he also got picked off a lot (holds the Packers record for it), and lost winnable games and even more potential championships because of that very same unbridled boldness. But until he couldn’t play anymore there was always “next season.”

Well, if we let boldness or wishful thinking routinely get the better of us and make a bad call at the wrong time and place there will never be a “next season” for us or the people who’s safety we’re entrusted with and responsible for. You only have to get picked off once and everyone’s done.

El Faro’s captain thought they could see the end zone through Crooked Island Passage and made a run for it. But they tore a hamstring and pulled up lame at the worst possible moment. Then a middle linebacker with surprising speed named Joaquin moved in for the devastating tackle. Game over.

Except it wasn’t a game. Somebody else mentioned it earlier on another thread: any voyage plan that contains the words “this’ll work as long as nothing goes wrong” is a sure sign that you’re really screwing up badly, even if you make it without a scratch.

Trying to satisfy that professional ego leads to trouble. Sometimes the only thing you need is the ability and discipline to recognize a bad bet and cut your losses while you still can: drop back 10 and punt.

Knowing when to slow down, stop or even (gasp!) turn around is, in fact, a skill.[/QUOTE]

12

[QUOTE=mhnydn;171493]The problem with all the good options; slowing down, turning around, not leaving in the first place, is that it’s generally impossible to prove you were prudent rather than overly cautious. The rare time you can prove it would be if you bailed, and your relief had a catastrophe, or you protested, the office said go, and you had a catastrophe.

Third party weather routing is a good idea, and we use it in the oilfield. I’ve also used it towing where they provided a forecast for your route twice per day, and it was very accurate. If you at least required this, it would give the master another tool, and a good reason to delay, turn around, etc.

If you really want to tune things up, require the LDPA, to have command experience on board. At least you’d have some hope he or she had some idea what you’re dealing with.

As far as making the master criminally liable, are you completely out of your mind? No. Full stop. You’ll have DA’s with an agenda trying to toss Captains in jail to make some point. If you want to put the fear into somebody, it needs to be the owners. The more disincentive they have to push the masters to take risks, the better. [/QUOTE]

That’s exactly right, prudent rather then overly cautious. I can’t take vast swaths of safe water out of consideraton because I lack the tools or sophistication to evalute them. But there is a trap there, similar to the mate tranfixed by the ECDIS, thinking that if I can’t see it on the screen it doesn’t exist.

On the other thread it was mentioned that the 48 hr forecasts can not be trusted. I was told to save all the 24/48/96 hr forecasts and compare them to the synopsis when it comes out. It’s surprising how accurate they are. But there is a trap there as well, sometimes they are less accurate but it seems it depends on how compex the meteorological situation is. This is where access to the forecast discussion is valuable. That there was high uncertainty in the Joaquin forecast was understood and discussed.

Aside from the uncertainly in the track the other factor when dealing with topical systems is the potential catastrophic outcomes in the case of an encounter. That’s the red squares in the risk matrix. For this good safety margins have to be maintained to cope with [B]both[/B] unforeseen cicumstances and forecast error.

Aside from this navigators should alway actively be on the look out for miss-matches. Difference in what is expected and what is happening. Does the wind speed and directions, barometer, swell height match what we expect? If not that may be a clue there things are not happening as expected.That’s a warning sign.

In high-stakes situations don’t let your safety margin just slowly get eaten away by unexpected developments. Better to have hard go / no-go points and bail when you hit them.

One last point, I strongly recomend that mariners playing for high stakes educate themselves on cognitive biases and decision making. Wishful thinking is more then just the kids hoping for a pony for their birthday. It’s a bias that makes your brain work wrong and it’s as real as things like sextant index error, and it can get you in trouble.

13

Alaska has a different culture. Stopping and hiding out waiting for weather is routine, expected, and accepted.

14

That’s why when multiple units anchor somewhere for weather you all talk and agree to not go until it dies down to certain conditions so your office doesn’t say go because that other tug just went.

15

[QUOTE=tugsailor;171503]Alaska has a different culture. Stopping and hiding out waiting for weather is routine, expected, and accepted.[/QUOTE]

Avoiding heavy weather deep-sea is routine as well. But you have to “show your work” so to speak. I’ll get queries like “how many extra miles run and why?”. I’ll answer “30 miles extra to avoid seas greater than 7 meters” or whatever. The answer back will be “Thank you.” That’s one reason the professional weather routing is nice, just: “as per routing”. Either way, if you spend money and/or time you need to show what was purchased. Even if the thing thing spent was miles steamed or hours lost and the thing purchased was reduction of risk.

If your answer is some homemade theory about steering forces, for example “I want to wait to see which way it goes” when there are solid forecasts available and you’re losing valuable steaming time you can expect push-back. A better answer would be that there is disagreement between models or that there is high uncertainty in the forecast for example. If that’s the case anyway. If you just think you can out-smart the professional forecasters with their tested computer models, maybe you can. I guess you can just try and make that case.

If a mariner believes he has better forecasting skills then trained meteorologists using computer models some skepticism is to be expected.

16

[QUOTE=tugsailor;171503]Alaska has a different culture. Stopping and hiding out waiting for weather is routine, expected, and accepted.[/QUOTE]

I will admit to being told by the owner to go straight across from Cape FLattery to Unimak Pass in the late spring even though I felt to go up the Inside was what was prudent but I capitulated to the owners because I could not argue that the passage would be unsafe or that the ship was not sound and seaworthy enough for the Gulf of Alaska. Of course, we got plastered by a strong gale out in the middle of the Gulf with nowhere to go to hide for it to pass. All we had was to heave to which we did for over two days. Had we taken the route I wished we would have arrived in Dutch at the same time as we ended up pulling it and without having had to get the shit beaten out of us in the process. I was thoroughly pissed and told my boss so. The owners were upset with me for voicing my feelings and a steady deterioration of our relationship began which never turned around. The only latitude they afforded me was that I could route my vessel on a longer track in the future to avoid weather but they still did not want me to use the Inside so nothing really changed for the ship. We got he shit kicked out of us on the say back to Seattle later in the fall.

There are few owners who put the crew’s interest ahead of their own. I have worked for very few in my career and it is why I have such strong opinions in opposition to Joe Boss. I really do loathe them all pretty much and I at Saltchuk now to that list of selfserving shipowning assholes.

17

[QUOTE=c.captain;171527]I will admit to being told by the owner to go straight across from Cape FLattery to Unimak Pass in the late spring even though I felt to go up the Inside was what was prudent but I capitulated to the owners because I could not argue that the passage would be unsafe or that the ship was not sound and seaworthy enough for the Gulf of Alaska. Of course, we got plastered by a strong gale out in the middle of the Gulf with nowhere to go to hide for it to pass. All we had was to heave to which we did for over two days. Had we taken the route I wished we would have arrived in Dutch at the same time as we ended up pulling it and without having had to get the shit beaten out of us in the process. I was thoroughly pissed and told my boss so. The owners were upset with me for voicing my feelings and a steady deterioration of our relationship began which never turned around. The only latitude they afforded me was that I could route my vessel on a longer track in the future to avoid weather but they still did not want me to use the Inside so nothing really changed for the ship. We got he shit kicked out of us on the say back to Seattle later in the fall.

There are few owners who put the crew’s interest ahead of their own. I have worked for very few in my career and it is why I have such strong opinions in opposition to Joe Boss. I really do loathe them all pretty much and I at Saltchuk now to that list of selfserving shipowning assholes.[/QUOTE]

It rarely makes sense to run straight across going up which is why so few do it. It sometimes makes more sense to run straight across going down, which probably isn’t done often enough (remember the KULLUK).

18

Topsail made a good point somewhere about the master’s attitude. Most often it’s not a matter of the master and the owner having opposing views on risks but the fact the masters,and the officers in general, have internalized certain ideas about what risks are acceptable. Not that we think we are going to get fired but that we are just pushing hard and taking things close because that’s how things are done.

19

Two questions, neither of which have to do with the late tragedy, but concern risk assessment and safety culture in a nuts-and bolts sense:

I’m curious as to what “weather routing” services various companies use. In the company I work with, operating 260’ LOA, 1900 IGT palletized freighters in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea, we use Bon Voyage Software (BVS), by Applied Weather Technology (AWT). Several downloads of data per day. Amazing accuracy. Simple but detailed graphics. It simply lays down a proposed trackline to follow to avoid bad weather, based on the waves and wind you want to avoid, and your destination. With every download of data it revises the trackline.(This is not a testimonial. I just wanted to give an idea of how it works).

Years ago when we first started using BVS I admit I was doubtful as to its accuracy, in a part of the world infamous for frequent and volatile low pressure systems. I soon had to eat crow. Its routing suggestions were beating our experienced captains’ ideas on weather routing, more often than not. Captains came to respect its accuracy very quickly. It has revolutionized our operation, which, while not as time sensitive as other maritime trades, still rotates around a rigid schedule.

My question is: How many competitors does AWT have? Does anyone have experience comparing Bon Voyage to another competitor’s system? Which is better?

Separate question (and again, this has nothing to do with the recent tragedy):
On deep-sea vessels are changes in speed still reserved for the captain alone, in any circumstance? What is the practice in other trades (tugs, GoM?)

As a captain operating in the PNW/Alaska area, I tell the mate that the throttle was there to be used, early and often, to avoid danger. Especially on the traffic-filled and rock-strewn Inside Passage of BC and SE Alaska. I tell mates that if they find themselves in a tricky Rules of the Road situation, or in a navigational situation they think they can’t handle on their own, to call me to the wheelhouse immediately and then SLOW DOWN. If they simply want more time to assess a situation I tell them they can slow down, or even hove-to, and not bother calling me. [U]Absent hauling a barge[/U], you can posit all sorts of situations where slowing down a vessel might increase the level of danger, but there are far more cases where slowing the vessel down will reduce the level of danger, giving you more time to suss things out. I have never had cause to regret this standing order, and if I hear the engines reduce RPMs while I was off-watch I always know the mate is being attentive. Nor have I ever had anyone abuse the “privilege” by simply going slow ahead all watch, etc. Certainly on the high seas in bad weather in our trade the mate is expected to change speeds quite often during a watch, and if anything, if the mate catches Hell it’s because it isn’t being done enough.

When I sailed deep-sea for awhile as mate myself, I found that the throttle was sacrosanct, never to be touched by lesser mortals than the captain. A captain told me there was nothing to be gained in any circumstance by slowing a vessel down on the high seas, outside of bad weather. Hyperbole, but he made his point. Don’t ever touch the throttle without his express permission–and I wasn’t going to get that outside of a gale. Certainly, that particular vessel was a steamship (the old Ready Reserve fleet container ship [I]Diamond State[/I]. Changing speed involved all sorts of men and valves in a steamplant which, at the time (First Gulf War) was notoriously touchy.

I’m not making a point here. I’m just interested in the differences in maritime culture and why they come about.

20

I treat the weather forecasts more or less the same as I treat guidance or direction from a pilot in a port I don’t know well: they get the benefit of the doubt until they give me reason not to.