Red Funnel ferry hits yachts at Cowes harbour

[josefk 2]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-45932147

[P_Wop 1,717]

Silly buggers.  They have the world's best pivoting propeller system both ends, radar, and have been doing this for years.  Aground on the Shrape mud just inside the new Shrape breakwater, way away from the channel.  Several moored race boats were hit, at least one sunk.  Probably Dragons, Etchells or Darings.  

More soon from my man in Cowes.

[TQA 55]

Second collision involving moored yachts in a month. Fog restricting viz both times. 

Radar ? 

Ferry pulled off rocks and service is suspended. 

[longy 455]

  Capt wasn't instrument rated.

[Grrr... 1,421]

Guess I'm confused.  Do you have to be instrument rated to read a chart plotter and say "oh shit I'm not in the channel"? 

[DA-WOODY 973]

2 hours ago, Grrr... said:

Guess I'm confused.  Do you have to be instrument rated to read a chart plotter and say "oh shit I'm not in the channel"? 

that takes a chart plotter rated Captain 

[JimC 652]

7 hours ago, TQA said:

Second collision involving moored yachts in a month. Fog restricting viz both times. 

Radar ? 

Easy to say that if you haven't been there. Easy to understand how it could happen, close quarters,lots of moorings and very thick fog by the looks. Not to mention the tide. Anyone care to post a radar screen of what you actually see there?

But no matter what, still no excuse unless they had a significant equipment failure at the wrong moment. RAIB report (assume there will be one) should make interesting reading

[mad 3,700]

They must have seriously fucked up to have parked it on the Shrape!

[JMore 69]

Captain and mate suspended

Isle of Wight ferry captain and mate suspended http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-45938466

[Chimp too 298]

Surely with a highly manoeuvrable vessel like this, even with the tide in Cowes, the skipper should have been travelling at the appropriate speed for the conditions. If poor visibility due to fog, and not certain where he was in the channel (looking out if the window), he should have been going slow enough to avoid collisions. 

[Mambo Kings 588]

4 hours ago, JMore said:

Captain and mate suspended

Isle of Wight ferry captain and mate suspended http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-45938466

Looks like a Contessa 32??

[JohnMB 299]

1 hour ago, Mambo Kings said:

Looks like a Contessa 32??

Sure does; first big boat I ever sailed on was a Contessa 32 (Fusileer).

[Mambo Kings 588]

1 minute ago, JohnMB said:

Sure does; first big boat I ever sailed on was a Contessa 32 (Fusileer).

Me too.  I sailed on Binkie.

[JimC 652]

4 hours ago, Mambo Kings said:

Looks like a Contessa 32??

It is.

[Presuming Ed 188]

Don’t understand how they ended up East of the moored boats South of the small boat channel. Rumour is that they tried to enter by the small boat channel.

Huge fuck up anyway. 

[mad 3,700]

20 minutes ago, Presuming Ed said:

Don’t understand how they ended up East of the moored boats South of the small boat channel. Rumour is that they tried to enter by the small boat channel.

Huge fuck up anyway. 

Fuck, not even at high tide and slack water would you want to try that, I’ve not looked at a chart, but from memory coming in and out that’s not a viable option in one of those! Am I wrong?

[Recidivist 487]

Quote

Coastguards at the scene confirmed a mast seen in the water belongs to a vessel that sank in collision with the Red Falcon

I think it's a bit rough to say the Contessa was "in collision with" the ferry - poor bloody boat was innocently sitting on its mooring, stationary and minding its own business ... hardly an active participant in the proceedings.

[Presuming Ed 188]

[Presuming Ed 188]

[Foreverslow 195]

Work associate told me as a young man, he took a job running a small ferry on a river in West Virginia during the summer while he was completing his electrical engineering degree.

Everything was going fine until the day they had a killer fog settle in the valley.

Little traffic but he had to check the other side of the river as there was no such thing as cell phones in the early 1970s.

 

He headed out on a run thinking he knew what he was doing,, but soon was totally lost in the fog, and panic started to settle in as he was not a real boater.

Not wanting to have a collision and lose his job, he slowed to almost a compete stop and quietly tried to use everything he had been taught by the owner along with all those smarts from engineering school to keep from getting run over or running the small ferry aground.  After 2.5 hours he made out the silhouette of the dock.  As he quietly brought her in for docking, he noticed it was the dock he had begun from. 

And he was OK with that..

[nolatom 325]

14 hours ago, Recidivist said:

I think it's a bit rough to say the Contessa was "in collision with" the ferry - poor bloody boat was innocently sitting on its mooring, stationary and minding its own business ... hardly an active participant in the proceedings.

If so, the magic word is ferry "allided with" Contessa, not "co-llided", since only one was underway..  Little-used word until you get into the maritime blame-game formally.

[Grande Mastere Dreade 2,022]

2 hours ago, Foreverslow said:

Work associate told me as a young man, he took a job running a small ferry on a river in West Virginia during the summer while he was completing his electrical engineering degree.

Everything was going fine until the day they had a killer fog settle in the valley.

Little traffic but he had to check the other side of the river as there was no such thing as cell phones in the early 1970s.

 

He headed out on a run thinking he knew what he was doing,, but soon was totally lost in the fog, and panic started to settle in as he was not a real boater.

Not wanting to have a collision and lose his job, he slowed to almost a compete stop and quietly tried to use everything he had been taught by the owner along with all those smarts from engineering school to keep from getting run over or running the small ferry aground.  After 2.5 hours he made out the silhouette of the dock.  As he quietly brought her in for docking, he noticed it was the dock he had begun from. 

And he was OK with that..

yes, any landing can be a good landing depending on the cirmcumstances.

once i pulled my boat off the mooring , trying to row it in in 20mph, after 10 mins of furious rowing I looked to my left and there was my mooring ball, picked up the pennant and put it back on...   yup, that'll work..

[ProaSailor 335]

A bit more context for those of us who haven't been there:

https://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@13&key=isytH~o{F

https://www.google.com/maps/search/cowes+harbor/@50.7622213,-1.2920728,746m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

Looks like an accident waiting to happen!  Ferry route goes directly through a field of moored boats?

[JohnMB 299]

35 minutes ago, ProaSailor said:

A bit more context for those of us who haven't been there:

https://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@13&key=isytH~o{F

 

 

Looks like an accident waiting to happen!  Ferry route goes directly through a field of moored boats?

 

Are you suggesting that the captain decided to follow the google earth track rather than the chart :). 

[mad 3,700]

2 minutes ago, JohnMB said:

Are you suggesting that the captain decided to follow the google earth track rather than the chart :). 

Well he didn't follow the chart this time! 

[freddy 7]

17 hours ago, mad said:

Fuck, not even at high tide and slack water would you want to try that, I’ve not looked at a chart, but from memory coming in and out that’s not a viable option in one of those! Am I wrong?

You are not wrong. There is a reason it is called the small boat channel! I am not sure you would take a modern 50' with deep keel up there, unless you really knew your stuff.

[ProaSailor 335]

http://www.cowesharbourcommission.co.uk/local_notice_to_mariners_28T_of_2018

Quote

Notice is hereby given that a vessel has sunk on its moorings in the southern main harbour Small Craft Moorings Area. The wreck, in position 50^o 45.737’ N, 001^o 17.482’W (see figure 1), has been marked with a temporary marker buoy Fl.Y.(4) 20s.

[mad 3,700]

I’m confused, if that’s where the ferry ‘allided’? How did it end up on the Shrape bank?

or is this 2 separate incidents and the skipper was just having a very bad day.?

[Presuming Ed 188]

It ended up about due east of the wreck. So on the mud south of the breakwater, not what one would normally consider to be the Shrape.

[ProaSailor 335]

http://www.cowesharbourcommission.co.uk/fairways

[Presuming Ed 188]

1 hour ago, ProaSailor said:

Looks like an accident waiting to happen!  Ferry route goes directly through a field of moored boats?

Oddly enough, no.

The usual route is to enter the river in the main fairway to the west of the main breakwater, leaving the moored boats to port. 

[mad 3,700]

10 minutes ago, Presuming Ed said:

It ended up about due east of the wreck. So on the mud south of the breakwater, not what one would normally consider to be the Shrape.

Got it, from the footage it looked as if the ferry may have been on the other side of harbour wall. 

[Soton_Speed 3]

20 hours ago, Presuming Ed said:

Don’t understand how they ended up East of the moored boats South of the small boat channel. Rumour is that they tried to enter by the small boat channel.

Huge fuck up anyway. 

According to this article in Yachting Monthly there have been two separate incidents in which a Red Funnel ferry has left the main channel.

 

Quote

On 27 September 2018, the Red Eagle, whilst departing East Cowes for Southampton in fog, entered Cowes Harbour’s small craft mooring area and hit a number of moored yachts, causing them to be ripped from their moorings. They were later recovered.

 

Three incidents inside of a month?  It's getting a bit Pythonesque down at Town Quay....

[mad 3,700]

3 minutes ago, Soton_Speed said:

According to this article in Yachting Monthly there have been two separate incidents in which a Red Funnel ferry has left the main channel.

 

 

Three incidents inside of a month?  It's getting a bit Pythonesque down at Town Quay....

No wonder the season tickets are so bloody expensive. 

[d'ranger 2,536]

Was this guy driving?

Never mind, thought it read Red Flannel Ferry.

[Presuming Ed 188]

1 hour ago, Soton_Speed said:

Three incidents inside of a month?  It's getting a bit Pythonesque down at Town Quay....

What with the ferries and the ongoing cock up that is the floating bridge, life in Cowes is a bit interesting at the moment.

[P_Wop 1,717]

3 hours ago, Presuming Ed said:

It ended up about due east of the wreck. So on the mud south of the breakwater, not what one would normally consider to be the Shrape.

It was all technically the Shrape until the breakwater went in.  

Still boggling that he ended up way over there.

[mad 3,700]

23 minutes ago, P_Wop said:

It was all technically the Shrape until the breakwater went in.  

Still boggling that he ended up way over there.

Fuck you must be old if you can remember that!  

[Presuming Ed 188]

Shame. And a bloody good thing nobody was onboard.

Photo from the  Island Echo

[mad 3,700]

1 minute ago, Presuming Ed said:

Shame.

photo via Island Echo

Takes some doing to cut one of those in half!

[Tax Man 160]

10 minutes ago, Presuming Ed said:

Shame. And a bloody good thing nobody was onboard.

Photo from the  Island Echo

I don't think that will buff out.

[unShirley 99]

Yes, it must have been a pretty violent allision

[Recidivist 487]

Obviously the ferry captain was proceeding at low speed in a safe manner!

[mad 3,700]

Wasn’t there a temporary pontoon there or close by for big maxi boats etc close by?

Sure I remember seeing it there last Fastnet Race, that could have been very expensive!

[mad 3,700]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-45952004

Quote

A yacht which sank when it was hit by a car ferry in thick fog off the Isle of Wight could cost up to £200,000 to replace, its owner has said.

The Red Falcon ran aground after striking yachts moored off East Cowes on Sunday morning.

Greylag, a Contessa 32 yacht owned by Nigel Minchin, has since been recovered from Cowes Harbour. He said it had been a "fine boat, in good order".

Red Funnel said the issue was in the hands of its insurers.

The vehicle ferry, which left Southampton for East Cowes at 07:00 BST, ran aground an hour later while entering the harbour in low visibility, coming to a halt about 50m (165ft) off the esplanade.

Nigel Minchin said he had used Greylag for leisure sailing over the last 40 years.

Image copyrightNIGEL MINCHIN Image captionNigel Minchin said his yacht, pictured in about 1980, has been moored in Cowes for many years

He said the back end seemed to have been taken off in the impact and estimates for a new like-for-like bespoke replacement were anything between £100,000 and £200,000, although the insurance value was considerably less.

Nigel Minchin said he had asked Red Funnel for the "full replacement value" and had spoken to chief executive Fran Collins on Sunday evening.

He said the incident was "obviously a big embarrassment for them".

The wreckage is now in a boatyard and will be examined as part of the MAIB investigation.

 

[Moonduster 312]

Hard to believe that damage was caused by a collision. I'd guess the the boat was holed and sank from the collision and was subsequently cut in half by a using a cable rather than a strap when lifting. You can see in the photo that they're lifting the damned thing by the mast.

[12345 73]

17 hours ago, Presuming Ed said:

Shame. And a bloody good thing nobody was onboard.

Photo from the  Island Echo

The front fell off? 

[P_Wop 1,717]

1 hour ago, Moonduster said:

Hard to believe that damage was caused by a collision. I'd guess the the boat was holed and sank from the collision and was subsequently cut in half by a using a cable rather than a strap when lifting. You can see in the photo that they're lifting the damned thing by the mast.

The Red Funnel ships have vectoring propellors at each end, I think Voith Schneider or similar.  These will properly mince up anything dragged into them.

[mad 3,700]

1 hour ago, Moonduster said:

Hard to believe that damage was caused by a collision. I'd guess the the boat was holed and sank from the collision and was subsequently cut in half by a using a cable rather than a strap when lifting. You can see in the photo that they're lifting the damned thing by the mast.

No cable, no matter how sharp will cut a boat in half.

[ride2live 40]

21 minutes ago, 12345 said:

The front fell off? 

In this case the back fell off.

[Windward 332]

45 minutes ago, mad said:

No cable, no matter how sharp will cut a boat in half.

Huh?

Using a chain to split up sunk steel ships into manageable pieces is pretty standard salvage stuff.  

What did I miss? 

[dogwatch 494]

"He said the back end seemed to have been taken off in the impact and estimates for a new like-for-like bespoke replacement were anything between £100,000 and £200,000, although the insurance value was considerably less."

 

Good luck with that. The going rate for a Contessa 32 is in the range £15-25K. 

https://www.apolloduck.com/search.phtml?search=contessa+32&exact=1&sr=1&q=1&x=0#result

[JimC 652]

Well, big difference between "going rate" and "new like for like bespoke replacement".  

But man, this is going to be a *very* interesting MAIB report!

[Mambo Kings 588]

22 minutes ago, JimC said:

Well, big difference between "going rate" and "new like for like bespoke replacement".  

 

Amazing as it may seem, Jeremy Rogers Ltd (yes the original Jeremy Rogers with his kids running the shop) can still build you a brand new Contessa 32.

and they start at 205,000 pounds!

[Mambo Kings 588]

 

[kinardly 157]

This is kind of thread drift but why would anyone pay that much for a new one of those? It looks like your average 4.25KSB (being generous here). Back to the thread: I'm going to be very interested in the findings when it's all sorted out. You don't hear much about it but we do get a fair amount of pea soup fog here in SoCal and I have been guilty of the "Oh, let's just inch our way in along the six fathom curve until we find a buoy we recognize" school of seamanship. We also have an awful lot of those big gray muthas with large white hull numbers going in and out in all conditions. That photo is very sobering. 

[Presuming Ed 188]

11 hours ago, JimC said:

Well, big difference between "going rate" and "new like for like bespoke replacement".  

But man, this is going to be a *very* interesting MAIB report!

They’re a bit busy with investigations on IoW ferries at the moment. 

[Presuming Ed 188]

8 hours ago, kinardly said:

This is kind of thread drift but why would anyone pay that much for a new one of those? It looks like your average 4.25KSB (being generous here). 

They’re solid, seaworthy boats that people fall in love with. Famously with an AVS of something like 160°. The love isn’t particularly explicable to me, but each to their own. 

[JimC 652]

1 hour ago, Presuming Ed said:

They’re a bit busy with investigations on IoW ferries at the moment. 

Well at least they are nice and handy for the office. No hotel bills to pay. Think they might be taking the hovercraft to the Island, although that's got its own problems at the moment.

[Snowden 275]

On 10/23/2018 at 9:25 PM, mad said:

Fuck you must be old if you can remember that!  

I think the breakwater is only about 5-10 years old unless I'm missing something?

[mad 3,700]

46 minutes ago, Snowden said:

I think the breakwater is only about 5-10 years old unless I'm missing something?

The island breakwater is relatively recent, the breakwater from east Cowes has been there for decades. 

[Presuming Ed 188]

And finally we have a MAIB report.

https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports/collision-between-ro-ro-passenger-ferry-red-falcon-and-moored-yacht-greylag?utm_source=012e8595-9801-497e-b91e-ff6d2bcc6b4d&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate

Quote

Summary

At 0811 on 21 October 2018, when navigating in severely reduced visibility in Cowes Harbour, the master of the ro-ro passenger ferry Red Falcon lost orientation when his vessel swung out of control, departed the navigable channel and was spun around through 220°. In his confusion the master drove the ferry in the wrong direction resulting in a collision with the moored yacht Greylag which was sunk on its mooring as a result.

Safety issues

• the master became fixated upon the information displayed on his electronic chart and operating engine controls, ignored information displayed on other electronic equipment, and became cognitively overloaded due to high stress
• the bridge team became disengaged from the operation due to a lack of clear communications and emergency scenario training
• the hazard to people sleeping on yachts in Cowes Harbour had not been sufficiently mitigated within risk assessments

 

 

[fastyacht 1,460]

On 10/22/2018 at 11:45 AM, Mambo Kings said:

Looks like a Contessa 32??

Made famous in Marchaj's Seaworthiness: the Forgotten Factor because she fared better than the IOR tonner GRIMALKIN.

[JimC 652]

Quite a terrifying report, because its hard to believe there are many ship crews who know their vessels and area much better than the Solent Ferry crews.  If a sudden unforecasted drop in visibility can drop them so comprehensively into chaos we'd better believe it would do the same to us.

[Caca Cabeza 130]

On 10/24/2018 at 1:15 PM, Mambo Kings said:

Amazing as it may seem, Jeremy Rogers Ltd (yes the original Jeremy Rogers with his kids running the shop) can still build you a brand new Contessa 32.

and they start at 205,000 pounds!

I owned and loved a Contessa 35 and sailed thousands of miles on a Contessa 43. Other than ventilation in the tropics, they are FANTASTIC boats.