Team Vestas grounded
- Thread starter PaulinVictoria
- Start date
Not My Real Name
Not Actually Me
- 43,184
- 2,908
Actually no, if every one that QUOTED it hit the Report button instead the Moderating team would have gotten bombarded with a bunch of Report notifications. Then I would have just had to remove one post.
I actually just hid them, didn't delete yet. If the content there is worth it I can manually edit each one to remove the offending portions, but none of them looked that content rich...
Christian
Super Anarchist
Gypsyclubjuggler
Member
Sailbydate
Super Anarchist
Jesus. Last time I saw a shit fight like this, the pilloried poster turned out to be spot on [Onya, Abbo in: http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=155047&page=22]
Better keep it going, jzk.
Better keep it going, jzk.
Snore
Super Anarchist
Son of bitch you guys are making Florida look even stupider.... If that is possible.
Care to fight over a vibrator???
Ok I feel better now.... Where did I leave my drink again??
Care to fight over a vibrator???
Ok I feel better now.... Where did I leave my drink again??
MasterRobin
New member
corkob
Anarchist
I thought this was about Vestas in the Indian Ocean not garbage heads in the Florida Keyes or Everglades.
Back to topic, it's apparent that Mr Block is quite close and sympathetic to Chris Nicholson and his plight. He has stated on the record his enormous respect for him as a sailor and a human being. I'm sure while this is well founded, this is colouring his objectivity somewhat and the interview. When does Wouter have his say on this public hanging? The reality is Chris Nicholson is in as an invidious position. He is admitting overall responsibility but blaming his trust in Wouter. In my view they should both be reserving their respective positions. Let the enquiries conclude before the finger pointing starts. Personally, I find it bizarre concept that if "the navigator" was off watch, that the watch captain would not have been responsible for the navigation. I find it inconceivable that the watch captain did not look at the plotter on coming on watch or at some point during the watch. If he did he had the obligation to zoom in or out as necessary. If the boat was in an area where there was a possibility of reefs etc. then everyone on board should have been aware of that. There should have been some consultation and discussion of passage planning in advance and if there was not, this is not the fault of one person. Clearly, the passage planning was not done properly and this was a system fault. Hanging "the navigator" from the spreaders is not fair. I use the inverted commas for a reason. Before gps a navigator plotted headings, speed, leeway and logged positions on a chart. A difficult techical job. A nightmare when tired, seasick and without visual references. That's not the case on VOR 65. With a plotter and the technology on board, the navigator is primarily a tactician. You do not need a "navigator" anymore to tell you where you are. Any fuckwit can look at a plotter and press the zoom button if necessary. It is inconceivable to me that the watch captain was not aware of the possibility of reefs and that he did not periodically check the plotter. A question Clean should have put, did the skipper look at the chart during his watch? If he did why didn't he press the zoom? if he did not......
Back to topic, it's apparent that Mr Block is quite close and sympathetic to Chris Nicholson and his plight. He has stated on the record his enormous respect for him as a sailor and a human being. I'm sure while this is well founded, this is colouring his objectivity somewhat and the interview. When does Wouter have his say on this public hanging? The reality is Chris Nicholson is in as an invidious position. He is admitting overall responsibility but blaming his trust in Wouter. In my view they should both be reserving their respective positions. Let the enquiries conclude before the finger pointing starts. Personally, I find it bizarre concept that if "the navigator" was off watch, that the watch captain would not have been responsible for the navigation. I find it inconceivable that the watch captain did not look at the plotter on coming on watch or at some point during the watch. If he did he had the obligation to zoom in or out as necessary. If the boat was in an area where there was a possibility of reefs etc. then everyone on board should have been aware of that. There should have been some consultation and discussion of passage planning in advance and if there was not, this is not the fault of one person. Clearly, the passage planning was not done properly and this was a system fault. Hanging "the navigator" from the spreaders is not fair. I use the inverted commas for a reason. Before gps a navigator plotted headings, speed, leeway and logged positions on a chart. A difficult techical job. A nightmare when tired, seasick and without visual references. That's not the case on VOR 65. With a plotter and the technology on board, the navigator is primarily a tactician. You do not need a "navigator" anymore to tell you where you are. Any fuckwit can look at a plotter and press the zoom button if necessary. It is inconceivable to me that the watch captain was not aware of the possibility of reefs and that he did not periodically check the plotter. A question Clean should have put, did the skipper look at the chart during his watch? If he did why didn't he press the zoom? if he did not......
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Uricanejack
New member
I posted this on sailnet a couple of days ago, If you can be bothered with the opinion of a cruiser who didn't even know this race was happening until the boat grounded.
If I had any sense I would just ignore these threads. But I’m a fool who can’t resist an argument.
A whole lot of BS about blame, negligence, and incompetence from people who appear to have no idea about how to investigate, learn from an accident and prevent a recurrence.
The old fashioned idea of blaming and firing the Captain or any one else will change nothing.
This does not mean I don’t believe the Skipper or Navigator did anything wrong.
It means I am more interested in why they made an error and why that error was not detected.
Simple Fact All Humans Make Errors.
Sometimes Some OF The Best Humans Make The Worst Errors.
There is a very good reason why organisations like the NTSB, MAIB, TSB are legally mandated to investigate accidents without blaming anyone. All statements to these organisations are privileged and cannot be used latter in court criminally or civilly.
This incident happened on a private yacht with no passengers and no injuries. Its extremely unlikely any investigation of this type will take place.
The organisations who run the race and own the boats or teams involved may choose to investigate the incident.
If they have a modern safety culture, they will investigate in the similar way. Its not realistic to say they will never blame or take action. It should be very low on their priorities and just safety culture only be invoked in the case of a culpable act.
Even then dealt with entirely separately from the incident investigation.
Back to the incident itself. It almost certainly did not happen just because the navigator didn’t zoom in
The following is just my opinion based on minimal second and third hand information and may be complete bollocks.
.
This would just be one event in a series or chain of events which all came together or just lined up perfectly to allow this to happen.
There will have been a number of safety measures which should have caught an error which did not.
With this incident we can probably say from the information we have so far.
We can eliminate mechanical failure.
We can’t quite eliminate navigational system failure. (Probably will be eliminated)
Which leaves Human Factors.
Note I’m not saying Human Errors any idiot could tell you the navigator made a mistake. Big Deal.
A very simple time line of what we know up until they hit the moment they hit the reef.
(It may have all sorts of errors)
Pre-race briefings,
The boats Left Cape town.
The boats have been racing for a number of days.
The race encounters a tropical Storm.
The Race Organisers Open an area of the Indian Ocean previously out of bounds to the race to facilitate the all the race boats avoiding the storm
The Navigator with unknown discussion with Skipper Changes his planned route to avoid the storm.
Skipper has delegated and apparently abdicated the navigation to the Navigator. Without checking the route on the navigational computer himself.
The Navigator has changed routing due to avoiding a tropical storm.
The Navigator’s primary focus has been on the meteorology and boat speed rather than on the geographical position with relation to possible hazards( Navigator assumes he is far out in open ocean well clear of any land)
The navigator Checks his new route but fails to zoom in and does not notice the vessel is heading directly towards a shoal.
The Skipper has accepted the Navigators route. Without checking the route personally or going over it with the Navigator.
The Skipper has been advised there will be some seamounts with minimum depths 40 to 80 meters. Both skipper and navigator appear to have gone off duty leaving the deck crew under the impression they can sail through the night as fast as possible on current heading without expecting any hazards.
The deck crew are sailing a route or heading as directed by navigator they have been told to expect some sea mounts with depths as low as 40 and 80 meters
There was a Change of watch and handover from the off watch crew.
Unknown if before or after the watch change.
At an undetermined time prior to the grounding. The Skipper and Navigator went bellow and the Navigator turned in. we don’t know if the skipper was turned in or just down bellow. It would appear neither was at the navigation system.
Deck crew are sailing in pitch darkness focusing on sailing a prescribed tack heading and speed maximising performance with constant sail trim adjustments.
Don’t know exactly who is on deck or what their exact roles are. (We can deduce from web site. A watch captain, a genoa trimmer and a main trimmer.)
30 to 40 seconds from hitting the shoal. The deck crew were surprised or confused by unexpected sights and sounds.
Deck crew are trying to figure out what’s going on. Others are coming up on deck
Before the crew can determine what’s happening.
The boat hits.
From the above simple time line you can see the Navigators error was not even the immediate or direct cause of the grounding.
The immediate or direct cause was the on watch deck crew had no situational awareness of the boats position relative to the shoal.
The on watch deck crew had no idea there was a possibility of a shoal near there intended track
.
The Navigators error in the use of his equipment possible based on an assumption is just one of many factors which led to this situation.
The Skipper trusting the navigator without checking for errors is just another one of many factors. This is a critical failure leaving the boat vulnerable to a single error by a single individual. Still not a root cause.
To find the route cause. A full causal factor analysis is required at each stage where the navigational error could possible have been detected. And at each stage where all the navigational decisions are made. Going back through the change of routing for the storm.
The original routing.
Even the race planning and exclusion areas. and changing of exclusion areas.
For example explaining why areas were excluded and warning competitors to be aware of the hazards in an area when its opened.
The same situations may well have existed on some of the other vessels but through luck they passed clear of the shoals.
Or at least in the case of the Vessel which stood by during the night. The skipper and Navigator had noticed the shoal and remarked on it just 15 minutes before hand.
Many other race boats are probably organised along similar lines and are susceptible to the same set of circumstances. Or similar circumstances where one single persons error could put the whole boat in jeopardy.
A lot has been said about the electronic navigation system which appears to be an integrated system with a computer rather than a simple plotter.
This is a whole process, what training did the crew receive in its use and limitations particularly what training did the Skipper and the Navigator receive?
How about the designer and the builder. how well did they understand its limitations.?
What about the race organisers? How well did they understand it. What did they provide for back up?
Could it be improved.?
Perhaps sole reliance on this system is not a good idea?.
Was fatigue a factor?
Was crew size a factor?
Ultimately you will find quite a few people have made errors which they could learn from.
I would expect a report to find problems with and make recommendations about.
The composition of the crew on watch and their situational awareness.
(There should be someone on watch actively aware of the vessels position, course, speed and the proximity navigational hazards which may be encountered. A review of this should form part of during any watch handover. All crew should be aware of what may be encountered during their watch).
The communication between the Skipper, Navigator, Watch captains and rest of the crew. And make some recommendations along crew training along the lines of CRM and BRM from the aviation and marine industries.
The over reliance on a single person for navigation and over reliance on electronic systems. Together with training in the use of the navigational systems.
The passage planning process. particularly crew or team briefing about the route and possible changes to the route which could be encountered.
The over all race planning and routing and possible hazards including possible alternate routing due to weather.
Those who are willing to accept there role in the chain of events and learn from them should be given the opportunity to do so and sail again.
Personally I don’t race or know any of the individuals involved.
I would be willing to sail with the Navigator on this kind of voyage he is willing to learn.
The Skipper I thought I would be willing to sail with him as well in the future. When I heard his statement I’m not quite sure he gets his role. It’s early yet and media statements immediately after the event a full of emotion.
I probably would sail with him.
In any event nobody cares what I think or who I would be willing to sail with.
If I had any sense I would just ignore these threads. But I’m a fool who can’t resist an argument.
A whole lot of BS about blame, negligence, and incompetence from people who appear to have no idea about how to investigate, learn from an accident and prevent a recurrence.
The old fashioned idea of blaming and firing the Captain or any one else will change nothing.
This does not mean I don’t believe the Skipper or Navigator did anything wrong.
It means I am more interested in why they made an error and why that error was not detected.
Simple Fact All Humans Make Errors.
Sometimes Some OF The Best Humans Make The Worst Errors.
There is a very good reason why organisations like the NTSB, MAIB, TSB are legally mandated to investigate accidents without blaming anyone. All statements to these organisations are privileged and cannot be used latter in court criminally or civilly.
This incident happened on a private yacht with no passengers and no injuries. Its extremely unlikely any investigation of this type will take place.
The organisations who run the race and own the boats or teams involved may choose to investigate the incident.
If they have a modern safety culture, they will investigate in the similar way. Its not realistic to say they will never blame or take action. It should be very low on their priorities and just safety culture only be invoked in the case of a culpable act.
Even then dealt with entirely separately from the incident investigation.
Back to the incident itself. It almost certainly did not happen just because the navigator didn’t zoom in
The following is just my opinion based on minimal second and third hand information and may be complete bollocks.
.
This would just be one event in a series or chain of events which all came together or just lined up perfectly to allow this to happen.
There will have been a number of safety measures which should have caught an error which did not.
With this incident we can probably say from the information we have so far.
We can eliminate mechanical failure.
We can’t quite eliminate navigational system failure. (Probably will be eliminated)
Which leaves Human Factors.
Note I’m not saying Human Errors any idiot could tell you the navigator made a mistake. Big Deal.
A very simple time line of what we know up until they hit the moment they hit the reef.
(It may have all sorts of errors)
Pre-race briefings,
The boats Left Cape town.
The boats have been racing for a number of days.
The race encounters a tropical Storm.
The Race Organisers Open an area of the Indian Ocean previously out of bounds to the race to facilitate the all the race boats avoiding the storm
The Navigator with unknown discussion with Skipper Changes his planned route to avoid the storm.
Skipper has delegated and apparently abdicated the navigation to the Navigator. Without checking the route on the navigational computer himself.
The Navigator has changed routing due to avoiding a tropical storm.
The Navigator’s primary focus has been on the meteorology and boat speed rather than on the geographical position with relation to possible hazards( Navigator assumes he is far out in open ocean well clear of any land)
The navigator Checks his new route but fails to zoom in and does not notice the vessel is heading directly towards a shoal.
The Skipper has accepted the Navigators route. Without checking the route personally or going over it with the Navigator.
The Skipper has been advised there will be some seamounts with minimum depths 40 to 80 meters. Both skipper and navigator appear to have gone off duty leaving the deck crew under the impression they can sail through the night as fast as possible on current heading without expecting any hazards.
The deck crew are sailing a route or heading as directed by navigator they have been told to expect some sea mounts with depths as low as 40 and 80 meters
There was a Change of watch and handover from the off watch crew.
Unknown if before or after the watch change.
At an undetermined time prior to the grounding. The Skipper and Navigator went bellow and the Navigator turned in. we don’t know if the skipper was turned in or just down bellow. It would appear neither was at the navigation system.
Deck crew are sailing in pitch darkness focusing on sailing a prescribed tack heading and speed maximising performance with constant sail trim adjustments.
Don’t know exactly who is on deck or what their exact roles are. (We can deduce from web site. A watch captain, a genoa trimmer and a main trimmer.)
30 to 40 seconds from hitting the shoal. The deck crew were surprised or confused by unexpected sights and sounds.
Deck crew are trying to figure out what’s going on. Others are coming up on deck
Before the crew can determine what’s happening.
The boat hits.
From the above simple time line you can see the Navigators error was not even the immediate or direct cause of the grounding.
The immediate or direct cause was the on watch deck crew had no situational awareness of the boats position relative to the shoal.
The on watch deck crew had no idea there was a possibility of a shoal near there intended track
.
The Navigators error in the use of his equipment possible based on an assumption is just one of many factors which led to this situation.
The Skipper trusting the navigator without checking for errors is just another one of many factors. This is a critical failure leaving the boat vulnerable to a single error by a single individual. Still not a root cause.
To find the route cause. A full causal factor analysis is required at each stage where the navigational error could possible have been detected. And at each stage where all the navigational decisions are made. Going back through the change of routing for the storm.
The original routing.
Even the race planning and exclusion areas. and changing of exclusion areas.
For example explaining why areas were excluded and warning competitors to be aware of the hazards in an area when its opened.
The same situations may well have existed on some of the other vessels but through luck they passed clear of the shoals.
Or at least in the case of the Vessel which stood by during the night. The skipper and Navigator had noticed the shoal and remarked on it just 15 minutes before hand.
Many other race boats are probably organised along similar lines and are susceptible to the same set of circumstances. Or similar circumstances where one single persons error could put the whole boat in jeopardy.
A lot has been said about the electronic navigation system which appears to be an integrated system with a computer rather than a simple plotter.
This is a whole process, what training did the crew receive in its use and limitations particularly what training did the Skipper and the Navigator receive?
How about the designer and the builder. how well did they understand its limitations.?
What about the race organisers? How well did they understand it. What did they provide for back up?
Could it be improved.?
Perhaps sole reliance on this system is not a good idea?.
Was fatigue a factor?
Was crew size a factor?
Ultimately you will find quite a few people have made errors which they could learn from.
I would expect a report to find problems with and make recommendations about.
The composition of the crew on watch and their situational awareness.
(There should be someone on watch actively aware of the vessels position, course, speed and the proximity navigational hazards which may be encountered. A review of this should form part of during any watch handover. All crew should be aware of what may be encountered during their watch).
The communication between the Skipper, Navigator, Watch captains and rest of the crew. And make some recommendations along crew training along the lines of CRM and BRM from the aviation and marine industries.
The over reliance on a single person for navigation and over reliance on electronic systems. Together with training in the use of the navigational systems.
The passage planning process. particularly crew or team briefing about the route and possible changes to the route which could be encountered.
The over all race planning and routing and possible hazards including possible alternate routing due to weather.
Those who are willing to accept there role in the chain of events and learn from them should be given the opportunity to do so and sail again.
Personally I don’t race or know any of the individuals involved.
I would be willing to sail with the Navigator on this kind of voyage he is willing to learn.
The Skipper I thought I would be willing to sail with him as well in the future. When I heard his statement I’m not quite sure he gets his role. It’s early yet and media statements immediately after the event a full of emotion.
I probably would sail with him.
In any event nobody cares what I think or who I would be willing to sail with.
Francis Vaughan
Super Anarchist
Superb first post. IMHO you exactly capture it.
jzk
Super Anarchist
- 12,995
- 478
This is the whole ball of wax. Check the chart to be sure the vessel is not headed towards peril. The watch captain must check often enough so that he knows for certain that they always have clear water ahead.
They didn't do it, and that what has the boating community absolutely shocked. Because, as you say, any fuckwit can do it.
They didn't do it, and that what has the boating community absolutely shocked. Because, as you say, any fuckwit can do it.
jbc
Anarchist
I thought that was a really good summary.
For myself, I'm a little concerned at the remarks from Nico that sound like he may be minimizing his own role, or underplaying the need to have a level of oversight for fundamental vessel-safety issues, even when primary responsibility for navigation has been delegated. But it's still early days and the available information is very limited. I'm guessing from Clean's "patience grasshopper" that there's more coming from Nico, and this will be addressed more fully in the complete interview. And yeah, it sounds like Clean and Nico are buddies, and buddies might be inclined to help their buddies offer up a version of events that paints their own actions in the best possible light. But that's just human nature. That sort of context is often present when reporters are interviewing someone; the big difference here is that it's out in the open. Clean's willingness to share his views openly, without a filter, lets me draw my own conclusions about his point of view and how it might be coloring the narrative.
Something I appreciate more about this situation as I reflect on it is that these are not commercial pilots, or skippers and watch officers of warships or commercial vessels or passenger liners. These are ocean racers. And yes, they're operating at the level of professional athletes, but ultimately they're sportsmen (and women) playing a risky game for fun. Human error is part of the sport. This level of human error is unusual, but it's not some shocking dereliction of professional duty at the level of a negligent commercial operator who puts passenger lives at risk because of the pressure to shave costs and boost the company's bottom line.
No one who's defended Nico and/or Wouter in this forum has been making the argument that what they did was anything other than a serious error, even though that's the straw man that a few on the other side of the argument have repeatedly tried to argue against. I'm not trying to dredge that up again; that issue has been done to death many times over, obviously. But I remain interested in the deeper, more thoughtful discussion of what actually happened, in part because I think it gets to the heart of what fascinates me about the Volvo overall, and about sailing and racing offshore, dating back to the days when I was actively involved in that (albeit on a local, amateur level).
So thanks to those who continue to make thoughtful contributions.
(I also kind of enjoy the ugly snark and flaming. Though I'm not especially proud of that; it's a guilty pleasure. But hard to look away, sometimes.)
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Uricanejack
New member
wrong
his main conclusion seems to be that:
guess what - if the on watch crew lacks "situational awareness" about a reef on their course.., that's the navigators fault! and the immediate cause of the accident is failure of the navigator to make them aware.
the navigators primary job is to plot a safe course, and keep the crew aware of any potential dangers.
also
the notion that navigators at this level need "training" in how to use PC's in general, and expedition in particular, is completely absurd.
navigators at his level live and breathe that program, and i can't think of another piece of software that reflects the input of end users as much as expedition - i wouldn't be surprised if wouter had some input into features in the program, and if there were to be training - and there is for beginner users - wouter could have been an instructor!
was the software perfect? no - it never is.
can it be better - sure - it's always improving, and improvements have been made in the short time since this accident.
was the "zoom issue" with vector charts unknown? no it was well known by navigators at skill levels much below wouters, and in any case, i believe the magnitude of this issue has been overstated.
the fact that we can identify lots of contributing factors to an accident doesn't necessarily mean they combine to become a significant factor.
in this case the primary factor in causing the accident was human error
now, some seem to think that any time a human makes a mistake - it's only because the technology, or the organizational system, or something else failed them.
these people seem unwilling to believe that human error can ever be the primary cause of an accident, and claim - without giving any real reason - that these other factors are the actually "root cause" of the accident
and sometimes that might be true.
but in this case, these other factors are just ancillary causes, not the root cause
i'm not against improving our tools to make mistakes like this less likely - i'm all for it - but that doesn't mean that because the tools didn't have those improvements at the time of the accident, they are to blame.
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