Real Life Incident: No One Saw The Yacht

A container vessel was under pilotage in coastal waters in darkness at about 17 knots. Besides the pilot, the bridge team included an OOW, a junior officer and a helmsman. The vessel was being conned by the pilot in a buoyed channel while the junior officer was plotting positions and the OOW was observing the radar. Visibility was good.

Meanwhile, a 13.4m steel sailing yacht was transiting the area under power, making about 4.5 knots. With a crew of two, the yacht was not using a radar nor AIS receiver so lookout possibilities were restricted to visual means. The route of the yacht cut across the buoyed shipping channel and the crew did not see the oncoming container ship. Only at the last minute did the yacht helmsman see the vessel. He quickly put the rudder over to port and the engine throttle to full in an attempt to get clear of the ship. The yacht remained alongside the container vessel for about 30 seconds, bumping and scraping against its hull, until clear of the stern.

On board the container vessel no one had observed the yacht, either visually or by other means, and the crew were unaware of the collision. Yet, the investigation showed that the steel yacht appeared on the container vessel’s radar at least 20 minutes before the collision, as shown below.

Although the steel yacht was showing on the radar and was visible to the eye, the official investigation identified many factors why the yacht was not observed by the bridge team, including;
– No dedicated visual lookout was posted;
– Background shore lights made it difficult to distinguish the yacht;
– The bright lights of a nearby dredger caused distraction;
– Relatively low visual and radar detection range of the yacht;
– Yacht’s radar echo was not identified and actively monitored;
– Bridge team workload (four course changes in 22 minutes before collision and watch change);
– Bridge team members focused on individual tasks during that period of high workload;
– Inattentive lookout for small craft, although these could reasonably be expected in this area.

Lessons learned

– Small craft are notoriously difficult to detect on radar, but if constant and diligent attention is applied these vessels can usually be detected at the 2–3nm range.
– While some small craft are fitted with AIS transceivers, not all have them, nor are they required to do so.

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