A cruise ship collided with a container vessel off the coast of Vietnam in heavy fog. While the cruise ship sustained only minor damage, the container vessel was holed and took on substantial damage. Fog may have contributed to the accident, as vessels are often not reducing speed enough in low visibility conditions due to commercial pressures. Experts note that undermanned coastal vessels can be more susceptible to accidents due to higher workloads and fatigue in navigators. While ECDIS will be required on most ships by 2018, many shipowners are delaying installation until closer to the deadline due to costs and concerns about early systems not working as intended, despite warnings that transitioning to digital navigation takes significant time and training of seafarers

1. Moon
rockedCargo ship has close
encounter with ferry
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Safety at Sea
MAY 2012 VOL 46 • ISSUE 519

2. safetyatsea.net May 2012 Safety at Sea | 7
news
CruiseshipincollisionoffVietnam
A cruise ship and a container
vessel collided off the coast of
Vietnam in March. Silver Shadow
(28,258gt) collided with the
unnamed Vietnamese box ship as
it was approaching the Ha Long
Bay pilot station on 16 March.
Minor damage was caused to the
Silverseas cruise ship, but the
container ship sustained damage
to the bridge and was said to
have been holed. The force of the
impact knocked passengers off
their feet, CNN reported, but no
one was injured on either vessel.
“There was contact between
Silver Shadow and a local com-
mercial vessel,” Silverseas stated.
“Silver Shadow incurred limited
minor dents and guests’ safety
was never compromised. The
ship was fully operational and
continued on its course to Ha
Long Bay, where all shore tours
operated normally.”
Fog could have contributed
to the incident. Silver Shadow
passenger Andrew Lock told CNN
that the ship’s foghorn had been
going off regularly throughout
the morning of the accident.
“But there was a certain point
in time when the foghorn at the
front of the ship suddenly sound-
ed. And it was much louder.
And it caused us to look up,”
Lock recalled. “And in fact we
looked up straight out of the
window. And through the fog,
to our horror, we saw this Viet-
namese container ship appear,
sideways on. And it was as if
our ship was perfectly lined
up to hit it in the side.”
Lock reported that the Viet-
namese ship rolled over to a 90°
angle. “In fact, we thought it was
going to capsize,” he explained.
“It then righted itself. And with
the forward momentum of our
ship, it pushed the Vietnamese
ship around, so that it actually
came down the side, the length
of our ship, scraping along the
side as it went. And from that
viewpoint, we could see just how
much damage had been done to
that ship, and it was substantial.”
Sachin Matwankar, a maritime
collisions expert said he was not
surprised to hear about the inci-
dent. He said that vessels often
did not follow rules concerning
restricted visibility. In some cases
this was because of commercial
pressures as a ship tries to make
port at the right time. In others
it can be ascribed to a seafarer’s
false pride or a lack of under-
standing on part of junior officers
who are simply scared to reduce
speed, Matwankar stated to SAS.
“It is a false premise that only
the captain is allowed to do this:
even if that was true, then the
captain should be on the bridge
during critical phases such as
coastal navigation in restricted
visibility,” he reasoned.
Coastal vessels that are under-
manned can also be more suscep-
tible to accidents, Matwankar
said, noting that shorter routes
can lead to a higher workload and
the onset of fatigue. Navigational
standards in some developing
countries can fall short of what
is considered safe, particularly
in coast shipping, he added.
Cruise industry expert Ross
Klein said that the collision was
serious and could have caused
greater injury and damage.
“How it is possible, with all of
the advanced technology on a
cruise ship bridge, for a cruise
ship to collide with another
ship?” he asked SAS.
Seapix
Silver Shadow suffered minor
damage in the collision
Shipowners are avoiding early ECDIS installation
Shipowners are not installing ECDIS
on their vessels because the final IMO
deadline for compliance is not until 2018, SAS
has heard. “Since many ships won’t come
under the mandate until 2018, some shipping
companies are delaying the process, especially
when the industry is not doing well,” said Paul
Elgar, strategic business manager at Norwe-
gian navigational equipment company
Jeppesen. “Many shipowners are sceptical
about early adoption because if the systems
don’t work as well, that could mean costs.”
The UK Hydrographic Office, which makes
Admiralty navigational products, estimates
only 15% of the fleet that must fit and use
ECDIS by July 2018 currently complies
with the regulations. Guy Edwards, who is
in charge of the Asia-Pacific region for the
Admiralty, said that the different regulations
between flag states compound the situation.
A key compliance question for a shipowner
is whether the ECDIS is in use or merely
installed. “Some flag states will specify that if
the system is installed it must be used, while
others will say it can be installed to satisfy
requirements but that full paper charts may
still be used,” Edwards told SAS.
Once a company has established flag state
requirements the first internal process should
be to conduct an initial risk assessment to
identify implementation needs, the people
responsible, the timeline and delivery targets,
he explained. “Those shipowners that have
been through the process tell us that they
misjudged the amount of time needed for
the transition, so we recommend that com-
panies start planning as soon as possible,”
Edwards added.
The challenge of training sufficient num-
bers of seafarers in how to use ECDIS may
have been underestimated, he said, explain-
ing that 140,000–200,000 mariners would
require training in the next seven years and
companies needed to make sure that the
training centres they used were accredited by
their flag state. “There may be a supply-and-
demand problem with accredited courses,
so companies should start the training
process as early as possible,” he reasoned.
“The rolling deadlines for ECDIS stagger
how long different ships have to comply with
the regulations. However, it’s easy to under-
estimate how long the transition to digital
navigation will take,” Edwards concluded.