200257 Seismic Incident 2

Seismic Incident 2
Report No. 200257

We were in the northeast bound traffic lane of the "Off Texel TSS". On VHF 16 we were listening to the following incident:

A Guard boat protecting a Seismic survey vessel had for some time been trying to contact a fast steaming (20 knots) production tanker in the southwest traffic lane without much luck. Many SECURITÉ calls were made on VHF 16 and 13. Luckily the tanker responded at the very last moment and had to make a hard to starboard alteration to avoid running in to the seismic cables.

The Guard boat accused the OOW on the tanker of poor watch keeping and asked if anybody was on the bridge. The tanker's OOW was clearly upset and insulted as he replied with - "Yes, there is always someone on our bridge, but I was listening to the coastguard safety broadcast on channel 83". Both my watchkeeping officers were on the bridge at the time and we discussed this incident coming up with the following conclusion:

Had the OOW of the tanker looked at his Navtext receiver, he would have known about the Seismic survey in the area. Had he listened closely to VHF 16 and 13 earlier, he would have heard the seismic operation calling other ships miles before he got to the location. However, my Chief Officer made the interesting observation that, had the Guard boat used his VHF DSC to broadcast an ALL SHIPS call, this incident would probably not have happened! The alarm of the DSC receiving a call is enough to wake up anybody and get his attention. His VHF would have switched from any channel to 16 or any other channel if so installed by the transmitting party. I don't seem to recall getting any ALL SHIPS DSC call or any other DSC calls on VHF 70 for a long time! Does anybody use their GMDSS DSC correctly to get the right response?