My best guess (assuming there was no loss of steering or something other mechanical related) is that the Captain or whichever officer was in charge of the bridge at the time simply missed a turn because he was either going too fast or simply not paying attention. Or he was incompetent. There have been many such cases in the past. Being that it was freakin' daylight, incompetence seems a likely bet.

All commercial airline pilots must understand and speak English, correct? Is the same true with commercial ship captains? It was mentioned that the Russian captain didn't understand English well and ignored calls to change course.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
All commercial airline pilots must understand and speak English, correct? Is the same true with commercial ship captains? It was mentioned that the Russian captain didn't understand English well and ignored calls to change course.

Jim

Yes, it is true that a requirement for all maritime first officers and Captains need to speak and understand English. You have no idea how many times I've come across ones that couldn't in places like Central America and they were running commercial ships.

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
All commercial airline pilots must understand and speak English, correct? Is the same true with commercial ship captains? It was mentioned that the Russian captain didn't understand English well and ignored calls to change course.

Jim

English is the official IMO (International Maritime Organization) language, yes.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
He must have left something in Busan and was going back for it....

"...the 370-foot Seagrand had arrived in Busan on Wednesday and set out for its home port of Vladivostok, Russia carrying nearly three million pounds of steel coils when the accident occurred."

The ship appears to me to be riding quite high in the water for having a 3M pound cargo on-board.

The ship is fairly well loaded, the cargo hold is most likely completely full. Depending on the shape of the steel probably occupies the entire cargo hold. The ship is designed to also carry goods on the deck, hence the 2 deck mounted cranes, generally they carry steel or grain in the hold. That company generally ships goods in the hold, then the entire deck is loaded with yachts and then it's at the load line, or maximum carrying capacity. They might be picking the yachts up in the next port, then dropping the yachts, then unloading the steel. A common route for that company is Europe to the United States. Also U.S. to Pacific side of N. America (Golfito, Ensenada, Victoria, Vancouver, Japan and back), but they usually use their other companies ships for that voyage......

It is owned by the parent company that a subsidiary that I work for sometimes, owns. They're one of the worlds largest shipping companies. The subsidiary companies, books and transports yachts. I can't remember if I've been on that particular ship, but I've loaded/unloaded and been on several of it's sister ships that were built exactly the same as that one. Most of the ships like this one are relatively new and Chinese built in the mid/late 2000's. They also own the company and float on/float off submersible ships that have been transporting the wrecked Navy destroyers and the Costa Condordia around on. (Dockwise yacht transport).

It looks to me that the Captain was just flat out drunk. One article states twice the legal limit. He should have seen the bridge on his navigational chart and where the channel should be without anyone calling him on the radio.


I have a bunch of pictures of these ships on my phone, I can email you some if it interests you.

Here is what the ship looks like with yachts on it.
https://www.sevenstar-yacht-transport.com/about-us

If you scroll down to the middle of the page, you'll see an overhead picture of this particular ship or it's sistership loaded with yachts.
https://www.sevenstar-yacht-transport.com/



Here is the main company, you can poke around on their fleet and see the different ships they have.

https://www.spliethoff.com/

Here is their company with the submersible ships, That float the cargo on and off. The ship sinks to around the top of the yacht transport letters on the hull side and the cargo (with yachts) drives in and drives out. Then they have underwater divers weld stands to support them, then refloat the ship and strap them to the deck. The larger ones they use for stuff like the Costa Concordia. BP origionally built 12 of the ships to build one of the deep oil rigs in the gulf, then sold them to this company when they completed the rig.
https://www.yacht-transport.com/

Must've been the former captain of the Russian passenger ship Kazakhstan, link

I've been in the warehouse of many ships like that and the Captain is the boss; what he says goes. You can't change his order.
Full steam ahead maty.

I get that the captain was drunk, but wasn't there anybody on board who said "Oh shit, we're going to hit that bridge!" Or was the rest of the crew all dead drunk too?

quote:

Originally posted by John Steed:
I get that the captain was drunk, but wasn't there anybody on board who said "Oh shit, we're going to hit that bridge!" Or was the rest of the crew all dead drunk too?

None of us have any idea what really happened here. The Captain being drunk could be completely irrelevant. He may not have even been in command of the bridge at the time.

The media made a huge deal about Captain Hazelwood being drunk when that in fact had absolutely nothing at all to do with the Valdez accident.

I thought Russian Captains were supposed to be drunk...

In Soviet Russia, bridge crash into YOU!

Maybe he was trying to make a quick getaway from the Korean mob for all of his steel-ing.

I think the captain or pilot of the ship programed the auto pilot wrong and no one was paying attention until it was too late. In watching a different and better video I think the ship was actually in reverse trying to slow down when it hit the bridge and also they steered it to hit the bridge where it did in an attempt to do as little damage to the ship and bridge as possible. I'm not an expert but I expected if that ship was still in forward when it hit the bridge it would have done a lot more damage.

quote:

Originally posted by Blume9mm:
I think the captain or pilot of the ship programed the auto pilot wrong and no one was paying attention until it was too late. In watching a different and better video I think the ship was actually in reverse trying to slow down when it hit the bridge and also they steered it to hit the bridge where it did in an attempt to do as little damage to the ship and bridge as possible. I'm not an expert but I expected if that ship was still in forward when it hit the bridge it would have done a lot more damage.

There is no doubt that the ship was full astern at the time of allision.

{Thread drift}

quote:

allision

A new word for me & it's great. Now for a chance to use it. Maybe "rubber duckie had an allision with my knee in the bath tub".

"Less than an hour before damaging the bridge, Yonhap reported the Seagrand had also hit a cruise ship moored at the same port."

What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor er-lie in the mornin'?