[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;179627]This thread is about the hearing, I was just making a list of some items from the twitter feed that I thought were interesting. I’m not claiming that using FWA was the cause of the incident, it does mean that the TOTE ship on this run were leaving fully loaded.
I was not aware that those ships were leaving JAX so heavily loaded. The explanation is that loads increased after TOTE’s competition left the US-SJU trade.
Are you saying that in the event of a cargo shift GM and freeboard could not possibly be issues?[/QUOTE]
I think what he is suggesting is that there is no possible survivability, so no need to ruminate on these characteristics any more than whether or not the ship should survive a direct meteor strike and how that would inevitably lead to sinking. One could also say the same about the investigation into corporate organization and control structure… Boat sank in heavy weather, no point in looking for anything save a person to blame.
I disagree, the stability (intact and damage), loading, lashing and other items are important to look into. The Board by necessity has to examine many issues, including items not immediately, apparently relevant (for example, hull stress absent any physical evidence noted in the examination of the wreck), just so that box can be checked.
The stability, load condition, cargo shifting, and therefore lashing and so on are critical points of investigation. While there seems an inevitability once the vessel was without power to suffer cargo shifting and ultimately loss, these all have to be examined. It’s about timing. Did the loss or shifting cargo or flooding enable/cause the propulsion casualty or inhibit/prohibit the necessary steps to regain propulsion? In theory, the loss of prop condemned the vessel one way or another (or maybe I should the loss of ability to restart under the conditions did) but the stability, loading, shifting (whether before or after the loss of prop), all of these play into the considerations of what may have decreased the time between point of inevitability and sinking thus impacting crew evacuation or emergency comms–a critical consideration.
This is actually, technically, multiple casualties, loss of prop, loss of stability, loss of vessel, loss of lives. Each of these has their own point of inevitability and has to be examined. The vessel’s fate may have been sealed at loss of prop in a severe weather event, but that doesn’t mean the crew’s fate was. If there was more GM, better survivability, even in the failure of cargo shifting, anything that increased survivability of the vessel in extremis is more escape time potentially.
The Board’s job is the breakdown these moments to a fine detail pre- and post-casualty. It also has to see what can be done to improve and stretch out those moments to see if any controls could be added, or should have been employed (if present). It all has to be examined, considered and questioned.
