⚓ SeamanEnglish

Lessons from accidents

Every rule at sea was written after somebody died. These are the accidents behind the rules, taken from the official investigation reports and retold in simple English: what happened, why it happened, and the one thing to remember on your own deck. No drama, no blame beyond what the investigators found, and the source named at the end of each page. The first group is about language itself: crews that could not talk to each other, to the pilot or to the passengers, and what that cost.

How to read these pages

Communication and English

Ro-ro passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, 1990

Fire on a ferry at night. The crew could not talk to the passengers, or to each other.

On the night of 6 to 7 April 1990 fire broke out on the ferry Scandinavian Star between Oslo and Frederikshavn. It spread through the accommodation in minutes. 158 people died in the fire, most of them in their cabins and in the corridors trying to find a way out.

Container ship Cosco Busan, 2007

The pilot and the master did not understand each other in the fog. The ship hit the bridge.

On 7 November 2007 the container ship Cosco Busan, leaving Oakland in thick fog with a pilot on board, struck a tower of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. About 200,000 litres of fuel oil spilled into the bay. Nobody was hurt; the bay's birds and beaches were.

Chemical tanker Bow Mariner, 2004

The officers gave orders. The crew did not understand why. The ship exploded.

On 28 February 2004 the chemical tanker Bow Mariner exploded and sank off Virginia while the crew was cleaning cargo tanks that had carried a flammable chemical. 21 of the 27 people on board died.

Watertight integrity

Ro-ro passenger ferry Herald of Free Enterprise, 1987

A ferry sailed with the bow doors open. Nobody on the bridge knew.

On 6 March 1987 the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise left Zeebrugge with her bow doors open, took water onto the vehicle deck and capsized within minutes just outside the harbour. 193 passengers and crew died.

Ro-ro passenger ferry Estonia, 1994

The bow visor broke off in a storm. The car deck flooded and the ship went down in the dark.

On the night of 28 September 1994 the ferry Estonia lost her bow visor in a Baltic storm between Tallinn and Stockholm. Water flooded the vehicle deck, she listed, capsized and sank within about an hour. 852 people died; 137 survived.

Weather and leadership

Ro-ro container ship El Faro, 2015

The captain sailed into a hurricane. His officers saw it coming and could not stop him.

On 1 October 2015 the American cargo ship El Faro sank near the Bahamas in the eye of Hurricane Joaquin on a voyage from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico. All 33 people on board died.

Cargo liquefaction

Bulk carrier Bulk Jupiter, 2015

The cargo was wet. It turned to liquid and the ship rolled over.

On 2 January 2015 the bulk carrier Bulk Jupiter capsized and sank off Vietnam with a cargo of bauxite loaded in Malaysia during heavy rain. 18 of the 19 crew died; the chief cook was the only survivor.

Structure

Very large ore carrier Stellar Daisy, 2017

A converted tanker carrying iron ore broke apart in the South Atlantic. Two men survived.

On 31 March 2017 the very large ore carrier Stellar Daisy, converted from an oil tanker, flooded and sank in the South Atlantic with 260,000 tonnes of iron ore. 22 of the 24 crew died.

Enclosed spaces

General cargo ship Suntis, 2014

Three men died in a hold full of timber. The air had no oxygen, and each went in to save the other.

On 26 May 2014, in Goole docks in England, the chief officer of the cargo ship Suntis went into a cargo hold to prepare it for discharge and collapsed. Two crew members went in after him. All three died of oxygen deficiency.

Mooring

LNG carrier Zarga, 2015

A mooring line parted and snapped back. The officer was standing in the wrong place.

On 2 March 2015, while the LNG carrier Zarga was berthing at South Hook in Milford Haven, a mooring line under tension parted. The line snapped back across the deck and struck a deck officer, who suffered severe head injuries.

Stability

Car carrier Hoegh Osaka, 2015

The ship left the berth without a real stability calculation. She fell over on the first turn.

On 3 January 2015 the car carrier Hoegh Osaka developed a heavy list on her first turn after leaving Southampton. The master and pilot ran her onto a sandbank on purpose to stop her capsizing. Nobody died; the ship lay on her side in the Solent for weeks.

Cargo fire

Container ship Maersk Honam, 2018

A fire started in a hold full of declared dangerous goods. Five crew died fighting it.

On 6 March 2018 a fire broke out in a forward cargo hold of the container ship Maersk Honam in the Arabian Sea. The crew fought it with the fixed CO2 system and hoses, then abandoned ship. Five of the 27 crew died.

Cargo chemistry

Bulk carrier Cheshire, 2017

The fertiliser in the holds began to decompose. The crew could not stop it and left the ship.

In August 2017 the bulk carrier Cheshire, carrying ammonium nitrate based fertiliser, suffered a self-sustaining decomposition of the cargo off the Canary Islands. The holds filled with toxic gas and heat, the crew was evacuated by helicopter and the ship drifted for days before being towed to port. Nobody died.

Collision

Oil tanker Sanchi, 2018

Two ships saw each other for twenty minutes and neither turned. The tanker burned for a week.

On the evening of 6 January 2018 the tanker Sanchi, loaded with 136,000 tonnes of condensate, collided with the bulk carrier CF Crystal in the East China Sea. Sanchi caught fire, burned for eight days and sank. All 32 people on board died. The 21 crew of CF Crystal survived.

Fatigue

Bulk carrier Shen Neng 1, 2010

The chief mate had slept two and a half hours in a day and a half. He missed the turn and hit the Great Barrier Reef.

On 3 April 2010 the bulk carrier Shen Neng 1, loaded with coal, grounded at full speed on Douglas Shoal in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The officer of the watch, exhausted after the loading port, did not alter course at the planned waypoint. The ship was badly damaged and leaked oil onto the reef.

Pilot ladder

Container ship Sandy Hook pilot fall, 2019

The pilot ladder was rigged the wrong way. The pilot fell and died.

On 30 December 2019 a Sandy Hook pilot boarding a container ship inbound for New York fell from the combination pilot ladder arrangement and died. The US National Transportation Safety Board found that the ladder arrangement did not meet the SOLAS requirements.

Lifeboat drill

Cruise ship Thomson Majesty, 2013

Five crew died in a lifeboat drill when the boat fell twenty metres.

On 10 February 2013, during a routine lifeboat drill on the cruise ship Thomson Majesty in the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma, a lifeboat with eight crew inside fell into the sea when a fall wire parted. Five crew died and three were injured.

Bridge team

Cruise ship Costa Concordia, 2012

The captain took a cruise ship close to the rocks to salute an island. The bridge team let him.

On the evening of 13 January 2012 the cruise ship Costa Concordia, with more than 4,000 people on board, struck rocks off the island of Giglio, Italy, during a deliberate close pass of the coast. She lost power, drifted, grounded and capsized against the shore. 32 people died.

Stability and evacuation

Ro-ro passenger ferry Sewol, 2014

An overloaded ferry rolled over in a turn. The passengers were told to stay where they were.

On 16 April 2014 the South Korean ferry Sewol, overloaded with cargo and short of ballast, heeled over during a turn, flooded and capsized off the south-west coast of Korea. 304 of the 476 people on board died, most of them high school students who had been told over the loudspeakers to stay in their cabins.

Sources and the way we write

The facts on these pages come from the official reports: dates, numbers, causes and findings. The words are ours, written for a seafarer whose English is a working tool, not for lawyers. We do not quote the reports, name crew members or add anything the investigators did not find. Where a report is online at a stable address, the link is on the page; where it is not, the authority and the title are enough to find it.

19 cases so far. The section grows with new reports; if a case from your own experience should be here, tell us.