Casualty News – Professional Mariner

Strong winds, dated mooring lines cited in Columbia River breakaway

With a blizzard bearing down on Central Oregon, crewmembers repositioned the tour boat Columbia Gorge and added mooring lines and a chain to keep it safe during the storm. The steel-hulled sternwheeler remained in place for two days of heavy weather before breaking free at about 0815 on Jan. 13, 2024, and drifting down the Columbia River. The 144-foot vessel…

Poor voyage planning led to contact of crane to bridge

Not long after the nearly 103-foot-long tug Nickelena passed under the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan at around 0200, the crew shined a spotlight off the stern to examine their tow — a 160-foot-tall crawler crane atop a barge. Searching the darkness some 500 feet behind them, the spotlight showed the crane’s boom bent completely backwards, collapsed over the crane body…

Inadequate scope and failure to use charts leads to vessel’s grounding in the Caribbean

A cargo vessel was destroyed when it ran aground following an anchor chain failure in the Caribbean Sea. Bonnie G was waiting out poor weather about one mile south of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, on Oct. 4, 2023, when the anchor chain broke and the vessel began to drift. As the captain tried to navigate away from shore, he…

Containers lost at sea due to cargo weight entry errors

A stacking error based on incorrect cargo weights caused the loss of 23 shipping containers and damage to several more aboard the U.S.-flagged cargo vessel President Eisenhower off the California coast last year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a report. None of the 23 containers were recovered, and 10 other containers were damaged, with losses estimated to…

Poor communication and bad winches led to snapped line striking crew

A poorly operating winch and numerous miscommunications during a docking procedure led to a mooring line being caught in a thruster, snapping, and seriously injuring a deck hand on a roll-on/roll-off ferry in Quebec, Canada, in March 2023. Analysis by Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) revealed that the breakdown in communication during the unmooring operation, exacerbated by the use of two…

Bulker breaks free from mooring during Texas gale

A dry bulk carrier broke free from its mooring and drifted across a ship channel, striking a tugboat and causing an estimated $2.5 million in damages. Officials at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that the dry bulk carrier Chang Hang Hui Hai was moored at dock No. 12 in the Brownsville Ship Channel in Brownsville, Texas, on Jan.…

SAFETY ALERT: LNG lockout/tagout procedures and hazardous zone markings

The U.S. Coast Guard said that in the wake of a recent marine casualty, which was associated with liquefied natural gas (LNG) and resulted in a fire and severe injuries to two crewmembers, it’s imperative that mariners working in hazardous zones create robust lockout protocols. “This incident shows the critical importance of hazard awareness, proper marking of hazardous zones, and…

Inexperienced renter combined with blind-spotted bridge crew led to small vessel’s capsize

A novice boater renting a small powerboat in Vancouver Harbor, British Columbia, crossed in front of a nearly 656-foot cargo vessel in October 2022 and was likely capsized by the ship’s wake. An investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) found that the boater was unaware that they’d entered a navigation channel and failed to see the approaching ship.…

SAFETY ALERT: Vessel Control Systems must adhere to recognized standards and be vigorously tested

After a high-speed passenger ferry struck a New York pier while docking — resulting in numerous passenger injuries and more than $500,000 in damages to the vessel and pier — a U.S. Coast Guard investigation, conducted in parallel with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), revealed “numerous safety issues, including concerns with the vessel’s control system configuration.” The Coast Guard…

Barge strike in New Orleans lock traced to wakes from passing ships

The towboat Kitty pushed two loaded tank barges into the Algiers Lock on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway just downriver from New Orleans when something unexpected happened: The tow started moving backward. Suction from passing ships in the Mississippi River pulled the 1,560-hp towboat and its two barges partially out of the lock, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined. Just as suddenly…