2011X42 Official Report: Ferry Aground

Official Report: Ferry Aground
Channel Islands

Report No. OR03

On April 17 1995, the catamaran fast ferry SAINT MALO went aground off the Channel Islands. In the conclusion to the inquiry madeby the UK MAIB the Master was found to have been reckless in allowing hisvessel to continue at high speed when he was aware that he was off trackin a potentially dangerous situation. Extracts from the report are reproduced here.
On the day of the incident the catamaran had left St Helier with 300passengers and her usual crew comprising of Master, Chief Engineer, Boatswain,2 Seamen, Chief Hostess and a Steward. The crew were all properly certificated(in addition the Boatswain held a restricted French Certificate of Competencywhich allowed him to command certain vessels, including fishing vessels)and the cabin staff were trained in First Aid. The vessel's crew generallyworked for 7 days a week for 5 weeks on followed by 1 weeks leave duringthe season. Accrued leave for Officers of 15 days for each month workedwas to be taken at the end of the season.

The forecast was for westerly force 4/5 which was well within the limitsimposed by the French Authorities for the operation of the craft. The earlymorning sailing from St Malo had been fairly rough and as a result the arrivalin St Helier had been at 0915, the vessel then departed 5 minutes late at0935. The passengers comprised of 189 Germans, 55 British, 54 French and2 Irish. As usual the Chief Hostess gave the Safety Briefing to the passengerson the Public Address System in English and French. However, as there hadbeen some confusion over the number of passengers, the Briefing had beengiven later than normal so many of the passengers were already sufferingfrom seasickness and the effectiveness of the Briefing was considerablyreduced. It was about 90 minutes after high water and the spring ebb tidewas flowing against the wind causing steep seas. The Master kept the vesselclose inshore after rounding Noirmont Point for passenger comfort, for thesame reason it was normal for a craft like the SAINT MALO to use the passagebetween Noirmontaise Reef and La Corbierre Light rather than the route outsidethe reef.

The Master was at the controls and the Chief Engineer monitoring theengine alarms from the console to the left of the Master. The Boatswainwas on the bridge assisting with the lookout and ready to assist with navigation.Due to the tide, all the reefs lying off La Corbiere were submerged. Asthe vessel came abeam of La Corbiere Light, it is possible that the SAINTMALO was closer to the shore than normal. Certainly witnesses from the shoreand some passengers have reported this to be the case. The Master statedthat the ship was about 40 meters off and abeam of the rock called CheninicMailllard when he began to turn to starboard at the start of the inshorepassage. When the rock called Pierre Carric appeared clear behind La Corbierehe would usually steady his vessel and begin swinging to port in order to'kiss' a transit and thereafter clear the passage on the reciprocal transitcourse of 315 degrees. From his seated position, he could see Pierre Carriccoming clear of La Corbierre but after that he had to rely for informationof the vessel's position with respect to the transit on the Boatswain onthe bridge wing. He saw Pierre Carric coming clear of La Corbiere but choseto postpone the turn to port due to the presence of fishing marker buoys,It is likely that the vessel continued to swing to starboard after the markerbuoys were passed.

The Master had a lot of experience of fast craft but he had only beenin sole command of this vessel for 7 days and apart from some time spenton board prior to taking over, his only experience of water jets had beenon monohulls. When he tried to come to port he found that it was unexpectedlydifficult to turn the vessel quickly, even using full port helm, so he triedreducing the engine revs and then increasing them again to 'kick' the vesselaround. This did not produce the desired effect so he selected Harbour Modeto vary the revs of the two engines to assist with the turn. As the vesselstarted swinging to port he encountered a further fishing marker buoy. At0957, just after he had steadied the swing to avoid the buoy, the vesselstruck La Frouquie Rock at an estimated speed of 27 knots.

The port engine immediately stopped, the starboard engine kept goingfor enough time to enable the Master to manoeuvre the vessel out into saferwater, then it also stopped together with the generator. Evidence indicatedthat the SAINT MALO had overshot the normal track by 0.1 nom or 185 metres,at 30 knots this distance would have been covered in 12 seconds. The reportcomments "Irrespective of the underlying causes it would have beenprudent to stop the vessel as soon as it was known she was to the northof the transit. Having stopped the vessel, the Master could have then establishedhis position and manoeuvred into safer water. Instead of this the Mastertrusted to luck and continued on virtually full power to the jets hopingto avoid the known hazard of La Frouquie Rock. This was a reckless act whichendangered the ship and the lives of the crew and passengers"

The Master invariably chose to use the inshore route at most states ofthe tide. The use of the Inshore Passage in all states of the tide abovehalf tide is accepted as normal practice by the majority of the high speedcraft which operate in that area. However, at least one Master of a highspeed catamaran chooses never to use the passage and others will only useit when La Frouquie is visible. it is well known that the sea outside thereefs in these conditions would be very uncomfortable and, conversely, forshallow draft vessels the inshore passage would offer a relatively calmalternative. "Under these circumstances it is not surprising that theMaster chose to use the inshore passage in order to limit the discomfortto passengers. He had used the inshore passage over 100 times previouslywhilst in command of other vessels".

The Master transmitted a MAYDAY at 1001 and a number of ships in thevicinity were diverted to assist. The order was given for the liferaftsto be launched and preparations made for evacuation. A brief Safety Announcementhad been made after the vessel had left St Helier but it did not gain theattention of the vast majority of the passengers. The passengers felt thejolting and heard the noise of the vessel grounding but did not at firstunderstand what had happened. The passengers gradually realised there wasa problem and some of them began to put on lifejackets as the vessel quicklydeveloped a port list, this seemed to increase less rapidly after reachingan angle of 19 degrees. Many passengers knew instinctively where to findthe lifejackets because of the familiarity with safety announcements onaircraft. An announcement was made over the PA system for passengers toput on their lifejackets. This was made in English and French although theEnglish version is reported to have been "You must take your lifejackets".It was heard and understood by only 31% of the (242) passengers who repliedto a questionnaire sent out by the MAIB. Many passengers found the tapesof their lifejackets knotted and the majority had trouble putting them on.Donning instructions are printed on the side of each lifejacket and on theinstruction cards which were placed in the seat pockets of most seats. Hardlyany of the passengers made use of the instructions, those that did foundthem to be of little use.

The crew manned the emergency escape routes and tried to keep the passengerscalm. All the liferafts were satisfactorily released but the painter forthe forward pair on the port side was secured outside the port midshipsevacuation door and could not be reached. While the liferafts were beingdeployed there were two crew members available to assist and direct thepassengers, it was only possible to use the starboard side emergency exitsas those on the port side were either under water or close to the waterlevel. The presence of the crew members to assist was not evident in thecrowded lower saloon. Many passengers did not notice any crew. There wasno attempt to differentiate between the elderly, males, females or childrenand in the tight confines it is difficult to see how this could have beenachieved.

A few minutes later, the Master ordered the evacuation to begin whenrescue craft were in position to lift the passengers out of the liferafts.It was considered by the crew that the use of overside evacuation ladderswould be too slow so passengers were encouraged to jump from deck levelinto the liferafts and some were pushed. By the time the last passengerswere ready to get off, the St Helier lifeboat had arrived alongside andthey were able to step directly between the vessels. All passengers wereevacuated by 1116, 77 minutes after the incident. The fact that there wasno reported panic is testament to both the fortitude of the passengers andthe strength of reassurances given by the crew. Amongst the 55 persons treatedin hospital, at least 18 passengers received broken legs or ankles, 33 wereadmitted, some suffering from hypothermia and one person had suffered a heart attack.

FEEDBACK

I read with interest your MARS report #43 datedMay 1996 concerning the grounding of the ST MALO. One thing that struckme about this report was that the vessel had a total crew of 7 responsiblefor 300 passengers. In fact, if you take away the crew involved in runningthe vessel, there were only 2 people (the Chief Hostess and the Steward)responsible for all those passengers. It is very interesting that cargoship owners are constantly accused of running their vessels, particularlyif they are so-called "Flags of Convenience", with minimum crews.Yet here we have a passenger ferry with 300 lives and so little crew available.It is no wonder that when an emergency occurred "many passengers didnot notice the crew". One point which was omitted from the report isthe flag of the SAINT MALO.