Asymmetrical Information

I understand that the captain has tried to commit suicide. Most likely he has much to feel guilty about. I used to be a merchant marine and have even wheeled a large cargo ship into ports located off the Great Lakes. The redundancy safety regulations make it almost impossible to have a serious accident. This captain almost certainly was goofing off. Could I be jumping to an unfair conclusion? Not unless a huge object got in the way of the boat.

David, wouldn't it have been easier to wheel a large cargo ship into ports located ON the Great Lakes?

5{uldn't it have been easier to wheel a large cargo ship into ports located ON the Great Lakes?”

Sorry about that. You are absolutely correct. On the Great Lakes, you indeed do dock the ship in the port. That is why it generally takes more skill to be a Great Lakes seaman. Ocean boats often anchor way off shore. This is especially true for those transporting oil. By the way, I wheeled these ships when they actually had large wheels! It is my understanding that today the "wheels man" merely moves around a small handle.

The odds are overwhelming that the captain had to be a total jerk. I wonder if he might have even been drinking. How serious are the regulations? Try imagining being restricted to driving a car a mere ten miles an hour down a normal street. You would have plenty of time to avoid a crash. This is what is virtually demanded of a captain when the ship is docking in port.

I heard the guy was actually sleeping. (He was the 'Assistant Captian' btw). I dunno how you can fall asleep on a 25 minute ride from S.I. to Manhatten in high winds.

What a field day for the lawyers.

A pilot license is often an exercise in extreme overkill. It may be similar to the individual who worked hard to earn a Phd in advanced mathematics---but employs mere basic grade school math during normal working hours. To be cruelly blunt, an intelligent deck hand could have piloted this vessel to safety. Heck, one merely needed to inform the engineeer to stop the engines! And yes, the attorneys will have a field day. This is probably an extreme example of criminal negligence.

There is one question that needs answering. Why was this pilot apparently by himself? When I was a sailor, there were usually at least two people with the pilot at all times. If nothing else, there was the realization that the pilot might have a heart attack or another unexpected medical crisis. This is especially true during the docking process.

I read a co-worker reported seeing him asleep, slumped over the controls. It didn't explain why the co-worker wasn't, you know, waking him up.

Stopping the engines would have been a huge mistake. Especially with Cort nozzles, which I encountered on The (Mississippi) River and are probably used on the ferries, you need forward power to maintain steerage. There are no brakes, only reverse.

Also note that the transmission is probably electrical, as on diesel locomotives. The diesel prime mover drives a generator, and is notched up for more power, but the electric motor turns the wheels or propellors. It takes a long time and a lot of power to bring that sort of mass to a stop.

An article in today's NY Times says, Mr. Smith was in charge of the boat when it neared the Staten Island terminal at a high speed, and his captain noticed that the ferry was off course, according to one police official. The captain tried to get control of the boat, the official said, but it slammed into a concrete maintenance pier about 400 feet from the nearest ferry slip....

Though there were conflicting accounts of how the accident happened, the police official who described the moments before the crash said that the ferry's captain had noticed that the boat was off course and yelled to Mr. Smith, who did not respond. The captain then tried to take control, the official said.

You have to wonder what the captain was doing while the boat failed to slow down and continued off course. I guess with hundreds of dockings under your belt, you get pretty blase, and the Staten Island Ferry has got to be one of the boringest runs in the world.

There's more info about the pilot in this article. It says the 55 year old pilot was "unresponsive", not sleeping. It does sound like a medical condition, tho I suppose it's best to wait for more facts before speculating.

BTW, I noticed all the reporting about victims being taken to St. Vincent's Hospital. The Times is careful to refer to St. Vincents's of Staten Island; I had been wondering why victims were being taken all the way over to Manhattan, where the other (real?) St. Vincent's is.

Triticale, You're right about not shutting off the engines. A few years ago, a Washington State Ferry was making its approach on the Colman Docks (downtown Seattle) terminal too fast, and though the ship was already in reverse to kill its speed, the pilot ran the throttle too high, and some automatic safety (read: engine-preserving) feature shut down the engines, and the ship allided, damaging ship and dock. (The ship needed less work than the dock.)

I've been on ferries that have come in too slow, nearly thrusting themselves out, and I've been on some that come in a little fast or off-center and count on the dock structures to "catch" the ship. Slow is the preferable experience.

“Triticale, You're right about not shutting off the engines.”

It may have been too late to do much of anything by the time anyone realized the danger. A large ship never stops on a dime. I am also getting more confused by the role of the “pilot.” Is he a mere wheels man (like I was) or the captain on duty. In the old days, the pilot took over command of the ship until it finally was docked. Lastly, why was this individual apparently by himself. I’m sure that this has to be a maritime law violation.

Yeah, it's a misleading term. I suspect that the ferry "pilot" more of a conning officer-- I doubt he's got his hands on a helm. It's possible that he gives steering instructions and doubles as the lee-helmsman, i.e. he manages the throttle and direction of the engines. At any rate he's one of two at most people who are controlling the ship's rudder and thrust.

If you're qualified to conn a ferry, though, you're think you'd be qualified to be a pilot for the region in question, from experience alone, but a pilot I know over here (Puget Sound) described some impressive feats they were required to perform in order to get rated as such. (Such as drawing from memory a chart of some navigable region in his domain, including all useful navigation aids and some known bearings.

I know the US Navy is trying to limit the number of people required on the bridge, and numerous defense contractors are pushing all-in-one control panels that would permit the watch officer to steer the ship, adjust the speed (or at least directly telegraph the engine room instead of the lee helm doing the same), and so on. Certainly merchant ships have tiny tiny crews, usually 2 officers on duty, one abovedecks, one below, and that's it.

I do try to be accurate, except when I'm trying to be humorous. I've canceled more than one comment when google didn't support my recollections. Being nicknonymous doesn't make maintaining a reputation any less important.

The controls in the news photo, which is no longer on the linked Yahoo page, looked similar to what I remember from the riverboats. Levers in a quadrant control speed of the propellers, centered is not turning. I would expect that as I had suggested, these control drive motors rather than the prime mover. On the river a single individual could conn the entire tow; only during tight manuevering would he need feedback from a lookout. I do not recall that there was anyone fulltime in the engine room; the fireman/mechanic would check things a couple times during his watch. I would have thought that in waters as busy as those around New York you would have a pilot/lookout and a steersman in constant communication but it seems not. Either the work assignments or level of safety technology are liable to change after this.

The last news reports I saw seemed to indicate that by regs the captain should have been on the bridge at this time, ready to take over if necessary. However, evidently he was a bit too far away (or simply not paying attention), and when the pilot/asst captain conked out somehow and left the ship headed towards a hard object at high speed, the captain wasn't able to take over in time. Remember, with something this big you've got to plan way ahead; it takes several ship lengths to stop even with the engines reversed at full power, and that's a long, long ways. I think a harbor ferry would be equipped to turn within it's own length, but that's still a pretty wide circle.

As for the questions about the actual job assignments: Just guessing, I'd expect that a short-run ferry like this would need very few crewmen for ship operations, but would have a fairly large crew of "stewards" for dealing with all the passengers. Thus the captain's main job is managing all the crew. He should know how to operate the ship, and has the ultimate responsibility for decisions about where it goes (in the rare case when there's a reason to deviate from schedule), but would normally turn the details of getting there over to the pilot. All this is not very different from Mark Twain's days as a paddlewheel riverboat pilot circa 1850, except that having power steering and direct propulsion controls the pilot can run the ship himself instead of shouting orders to others to turn the wheel (this could require the muscle power of several men for a big boat) and to adjust the engines. Nor is it different from any other ship I know of that carries hundreds of passengers. Modern cargo ships are different - the crew is quite small and so the captain has fewer management duties and more time to take bridge watches.

An accident waiting to happen. I hear Disney rides are in the same 'boat.' Poorly maintained (since that's expensive). And, there's a high turnover rate at the park (at least here in California, that is.)

As to UNIONS, in the ferry accident referenced, there were 6 people are board ALL responsible for the piloting operation. And, I've read that it's not uncommon for passengers to see the crew ambling over to the food consessions.

Seems where unions are storng and oversight weak (as you get in government agencies), then something here tells you that mismanagement is key.

Also, has anyone seen a picture of Smith?

Has anyone got any idea who the CAPTAIN on this vessel was? Smith didn't carry the full captain's rank.

Am I surprised?

No.

As I said we live in a world where accidents are just waiting to happen. Geez. Most of those people are board the ferry were frequent riders. And, the speed of the approach to the dock didn't get anyone's attention?

Wouldn't it have been a terrific safety precaution if OSHA could have posted rules to passengers to stand away from all railings IF it felt the ship was heading into the dock at a speed set for destruction? The boat moves. (And, as Mayor Bloomberg stated), this ferry opened up like a can of tuna fish.

Well, after tragedy people do pay attention.

So that unions are now in more trouble than ever. There's an outcome when quality isn't part of your product. Bad news for unions? Ask me what's going to happen, here in California, with the semi-illiterates on strike against the supermarket chains.

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