Death of a Supertanker (20 page)

When the enquiry resumed on the afternoon of the third day, the Chairman informed the court that during the luncheon recess he had had a discussion with the Assessors. Since the evidence of the chief officer dealt with a number of complex aspects of ship handling and navigation, he felt it would help the enquiry if the Assessors – both master mariners of long experience – were without further delay to put certain questions of a technical nature. He had discussed the matter with the counsel concerned and they had agreed.

Jarrett then returned to the witness box.

Captain Wedderburn, a solemn cadaverous man with iron grey hair, put on spectacles, cleared his throat and looked at the chief officer. ‘When you took over the watch at four o’clock on 29 October, did you check the course on the chart to see if it agreed with the course of two-six-seven degrees you allege was handed over to you by the second officer?’ Wedderburn’s manner was polite but unsmiling, his voice deep and abrasive.

‘No. I did not.’

‘Would it not have been a wise precaution?’

Jarrett thought about that for a moment. ‘Yes. With hindsight I suppose it would. But the second officer is an extra-master. I had no reason to suppose the figures he’d written against the course line were ten degrees in error. As a pencil line on a chart, a course of two-five-seven looks much the same as two-six-seven. He’d given me two-six-seven verbally, the ship’s head was on two-six-seven, and those were the figures on the course-indicator.’

‘But you did not check the charted course?’

‘No, sir.’

Captain Wedderburn looked surprised, put on his spectacles and consulted his notes.

‘There have been a number of references in evidence to the TM and AC radar sets in
Ocean
Mammoth’
s
wheelhouse. Will you explain to the court the difference between them?’

Crutchley could see from the half smile on Jarrett’s face that he liked the question. The chief officer was not a modest man. Here
was an opportunity to show off his knowledge to an important audience.

‘The TM set – that is True Motion radar – is intended primarily for coastal navigation. The AC set – Anti-Collision radar – for anti-collision work. The AC unit can in fact do the work of both since it is basically a TM radar, but its markers provide the relative motion reference essential for collision avoidance, thus giving both true and relative motion on the same display. This is very important for collision avoidance in close quarter
situations.
For this reason many deck officers prefer to use AC radar under most conditions.’

‘In that case is there any advantage in having both sets? Why not just have AC radar?’

‘Ah. It’s not quite as simple as that.’ Jarrett’s smile was condescending. ‘There
are
real advantages in having both. In close waters – the Straits of Dover for example, where there is a lot of traffic and very little searoom – both sets can be manned at the same time.’

He must have sensed a trap then, for he quickly added, ‘If there are enough people on the bridge, that is.’ He looked for a moment towards Captain Crutchley whose dark glasses were trained on the witness box.

Wedderburn nodded. ‘Of course. Any other advantages?’

‘When necessary,’ went on Jarrett, rather more slowly now, as if weighing each word, ‘one display can be used for checking the other. There’s also an inter-switching device that makes it possible to use alternative wavelengths on either display. This is important. It makes possible improved detection in difficult weather and sea conditions and reduces interference from other ships.’ He paused. ‘Is that sufficient, sir, or do you want me to go further into the technicalities?’

‘No. That will do very well, thank you.’ Captain Wedderburn again looked at his notes. ‘Could you not have checked the ship’s position by radar once you could no longer use the Decca
Navigator?
’

‘There just wasn’t time for that.’

The Assessor adjusted his spectacles with bony fingers. ‘I see in his sworn statement that the radio officer records that you reported the Decca Navigator failure at about ten minutes past five, and you told him of the radar trouble about fifteen minutes later? Was there no opportunity in those fifteen minutes to use radar
or fixing the ship’s position?’

‘A lot was happening in those fifteen minutes. Fd already got a position by DF bearing and soundings at five-fifteen. We were taking avoiding action for the second trawler. I had Feeny on the bridge discussing the Decca Navigator problem with me. I was checking on the lookout and his reports, then going back to the wheelhouse to consult the radar displays and give wheel orders. After that came the radar failures and I had to discuss them with Feeny.’

‘You have mentioned the five-fifteen position you obtained by combining a DF bearing with echo soundings; a position which you admitted in your statement to the preliminary enquiry may have been two miles south of the ship’s actual position. Do you agree that a DF bearing combined with soundings is by no means a reliable way of fixing a ship’s position?’

‘I only resorted to it after the Decca Navigator had failed.’

‘But you still had radar at that time?’

‘I was fully employed using it to avoid a collision. It was dark, we were in dense fog. A close quarters situation had developed. It was necessary to keep the trawler under continuous radar observation if a collision was to be avoided. The trawler was changing course all the time – the situation was changing all the time.’

‘How far off the land – that is Cape Agulhas – were you when you passed astern of the second trawler?’

‘Without the chart and course-recorder trace to check on, it is very difficult for me to answer that question.’

‘The ship ran aground at five-thirty-nine. That time is not in dispute. You have told the court she was steaming at twelve/thirteen knots. You passed astern of the trawler at about
five-thirty,
give or take a few minutes. At say, five-twenty, the land must have been within nineteen minutes’ steaming distance at twelve knots. That is about four miles. Would not the land have shown up on your AC radar display – particularly on the six-mile range scale?’

‘Not necessarily under those conditions. Thick fog. Moisture-saturated atmosphere.’

‘My experience is that radar is good in fog.’

‘Not always,’ said Jarrett stubbornly.

‘I believe that your radar had a range of up to sixty-four miles. Is that correct?’

‘Yes. But I was operating it on the six-mile range.’

‘Why only six miles?’

‘It is the normal range for operating AC radar in a white knuckle situation.’

‘What do you mean by a “white knuckle situation”?’

‘A critical situation. When your ship and the target ship are on converging courses in the decisive four-to-six mile zone. Things are happening very quickly. Unexpected manoeuvring by the other ship, for example. It requires intense concentration to maintain safe control in fog under those conditions.’

‘Could you not have switched on the TM set and consulted that display from time to time? I understand the two sets were mounted side by side in the wheelhouse?’

Jarrett shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Now – with all the facts before the court – with any amount of time in which to consider them, sitting in the security of this courtroom in bright daylight, it is not difficult to suggest what might have been done. But I had no such advantages. It was dark. The ship was in dense fog. I was totally occupied in dealing with three different collision-avoidance situations in the space of an hour. Due to the course error I inherited, I had much less searoom than I had been led to believe. I had no means of anticipating the failures of electronic equipment which occurred. Yes – of course it’s easy to see now what I should have done. But I can assure you, sir, it was not easy under those conditions.’

To Captain Crutchley, listening to all this, it occurred that Jarrett should have been a lawyer, not a seaman. This prompted him to scribble a note for Goodbody:
If
things
were
so
difficult
on
the
bridge
why
didn’t
he
ask
me
to
come
up?
He’s
already
said
in
evidence
that
I
told
him
to
let
me
know
if
he
wanted
me
on
the
bridge.

Goodbody read it, scribbled on the reverse side and passed it back:
Good
point.
It
won’t
be
overlooked.
Our
friend
is
beginning
to
limp.

Crutchley wished he could agree. Jarrett appeared to him to be doing rather well.

Captain Wedderburn told the Chairman he had no further questions. Captain Bronson, the other Assessor, a dark, sallow man with surgically cold eyes took over.

‘Did you check the four o’clock position plotted by the second officer before he left the bridge?’

‘No, sir.’

‘When did you first use the Decca Navigator to fix the ship’s position that morning?’

Jarrett replied that the Decca logbook had been entered with the 0400 position by the second officer. There was no reason whatever to suppose that it was an incorrect position. Although the Decca logbook was ruled for positions at twenty-minute intervals, it was customary to record them at forty-minute intervals, except in close waters like the Straits of Dover. The next fix by Decca would have been due at 0440, but he had not been able to attend to it because he’d been busy avoiding collision with the first trawler. It was after they’d passed astern of that trawler, and were returning to the south-west, that he’d gone to the Decca Navigator and found that it was not functioning. That was at about ten past five.

‘It appears from the evidence that when taking collision-avoidance action you were giving wheel orders for long slow turns to port and starboard. Also that you were making large alterations of course.’ Captain Bronson looked at the folio on the table before him. ‘For instance the evidence shows that the first alteration of course – that for the big ship ahead – was from two-six-seven to two-nine-five degrees. Was it necessary to make such big alterations?’

Jarrett smiled confidently. ‘Yes, sir. It has been drummed into our generation of ship handlers that when taking avoiding action, particularly in fog, large alterations are safer than small ones.’

‘I see.’ Captain Bronson, a man in the middle fifties, could scarcely have missed the inference that ‘our generation’ knew something his didn’t. ‘And why the long slow turns?
Towards
the land incidentally, each time you went to starboard?’

‘I was beginning those turns when the target ships were several miles away. It is necessary when handling a VLCC for collision avoidance to begin your turn well in advance. These three-hundred-thousand-ton supertankers don’t handle quite like ten-thousand-ton ships.’ The way Jarrett said that made clear the tag he’d put on Bronson’s experience.

‘I’ll take your word for it, Mr Jarrett.’ The Assessor’s cold eyes outstared the chief officer’s. ‘But they seem just as liable to run aground.’

Goodbody passed a note to Captain Crutchley.
How
to
win
friends
and
influence
people.

Bronson considered his notes. ‘Why, when you had these two trawlers crossing ahead of you from starboard to port, did you not reduce speed rather than alter course towards the land?’

‘I thought I had ample searoom.’

‘Presumably your generation of ship handlers has not been taught to keep away from the land in dense fog.’ Having fired that shot across the chief officer’s bows, Bronson announced that he had no further questions.

Goodbody rose with a friendly smile to cross-examine the chief officer.

‘Mr Jarrett, from your evidence and that of the quartermasters, it is not clear during what period the course
was
two-six-seven when it
should
have
been
two-five-seven? Did that error begin at four o’clock when you took over, or are you suggesting it began at two-forty when the second officer fixed the ship’s position and altered course to allow for the north-westerly set of the current?’

‘It certainly was incorrect from four o’clock onwards. I’ve no means of knowing what course was steered from two-forty because the chart and other records are missing.’

‘But when you took over the watch, right up to the time of stranding, the chart and other records were not missing. You could have seen the positions plotted by the second officer at two-forty and four o’clock. In other words you could have checked the course made good since two-forty, could you not?’

Jarrett did not answer at once. ‘My first concern when I took over the watch was to check on traffic in the vicinity. To examine the chart I would have had to go to the chartroom. I did not want to leave the wheelhouse while Fernandez was down below. I was at that time the only person on the bridge.’

‘But it was you who sent Fernandez below to fetch your jersey. Why did you not get Cavalho, the standby man, to fetch it?’

‘We were not then in fog. I knew Fernandez would only be a few minutes.’

‘Why did you not check the course – and the ship’s position – when he returned?’

‘The second officer had obtained a fix shortly before – at four o’clock. The next was due at four-forty. There didn’t seem any urgency, and in any case I was already worrying about the ship coming up ahead.’

Goodbody plunged a hand deep into a trouser pocket and grasped the lapel of his coat with another. It was a gesture which
somehow made him look even larger and more formidable than he was. He squinted at the Republican Coat-of-Arms on the wall behind the Chairman as if trying to discern some detail there, his face very serious. By the time he turned back to Jarrett he was smiling again – a warm, outward-giving smile. ‘You have told the court that when you phoned the Captain to report the fog his last words to you were, “Let me know if you need me on the bridge at any time”. Am I right?’