CYPRUS CEMENT created chaos in the port of Levanger

[Mark T]

Cyprus Cement incident last night in Norway: a propulsion problem caused the vessel to crash into moored boats and destroy a few of them.
Watch the video here: http://adressa.no/tv/?id=23212.
Any additional information would be appreciated.

[B.Clark]

what a shame for the owners of the small boats

[Mark T]

Yeah, really shame, probably they are calling ship's owners and want money to repair their boats.

[Dave Forbes]

A very tight space indeed , they may have to move the small boat marina elsewhere now. What was the tug alongside her doing , it seemed to be doing nothing to assist , even full astern thrust could have helped. I would want a new boat after this serious goings on.

[Clydee]

Now that is a dramatic video!  I hope the cement carrier owners and all insurers involved can promptly assist the small boat owners.  The tug operator may also have a problem

[Mark T]

Tug's owners will certainly have problems.
Crew on a tug was just watching from the front row.

[Captain Ted]

Makes me think

My first thought was also,,why the heck is the tug line to the ship slack and she is not  going full astern,

2nd thought however, from her angle she might be not in the beginning aware whats going on (only in the last sequence where you see the tug you can see the line tight) If the pilot, and I assume there was one aboard, did not give the tug instruction to pull back,,she does not do it.
What wondered me much more is that the vessel goes ahead a long time but not full ahead and still keeps going backwards and then the full ahead comes a whole while later. Somehow it looks to me that in the beginning nobody was really aware how serious it is and nobody saw that it goes wrong. Somehow it looks to me that neither the capt nor the pilot were right away aware that something is wrong. Seems the ahead in the beginning could be part of the normal maneuvre which went wrong and when they realize it goes wrong they give full ahead, as we can see too late.

[Jimmy Christie]

Makes me think

My first thought was also,,why the heck is the tug line to the ship slack and she is not  going full astern,

2nd thought however, from her angle she might be not in the beginning aware whats going on (only in the last sequence where you see the tug you can see the line tight) If the pilot, and I assume there was one aboard, did not give the tug instruction to pull back,,she does not do it.
What wondered me much more is that the vessel goes ahead a long time but not full ahead and still keeps going backwards and then the full ahead comes a whole while later. Somehow it looks to me that in the beginning nobody was really aware how serious it is and nobody saw that it goes wrong. Somehow it looks to me that neither the capt nor the pilot were right away aware that something is wrong. Seems the ahead in the beginning could be part of the normal maneuvre which went wrong and when they realize it goes wrong they give full ahead, as we can see too late.

Capt Ted - that's very interesting indeed and it's good to have the views of a professional on this. I would also be interested to hear what you think about the stated cause of the incident which, as I understand it, it was that the bow thruster had failed. It's a little hard to see what contribution the bow thruster could have made to this whether it had failed or not.

J

[Captain Ted]

@jimmy

honestly that is rather hard to tell, I do not know the lay out of the port and in what relation the berth is where she wanted to dock or if she was unberthing ? . If the bow thruster failed it could have a contributing factor to it, but that still does not explain why the full ahead came so late and/or the tug did not pull back.
Keep also in mind, the vessel is a rather small ship and seemingly ballast and therefore
a tug that size should have been able to pull her away or at least hold her . The water is calm around, seems no substantial winds either who pushed her on.
Of course one does not know what was going on on the bridge, if the thruster went down a kind of confusion (I don,t want to call it panic) could have set in, like someone tries to check fuses / calling engine etc. and possible the people on the bridge did not pay attention for a while to the surroundings (Situation awareness).  However if that is the case, than one would think that at least the pilot should have been aware whats going on and instruct the tug to hold her back. Due to fact that the engine is going already ahead a claim that the engine did not start is mute. Looks all to me that possible through a confusion the wrong conclusions were drawn which resulted in too late reaction to the situation.
Another factor could be also communication between pilot and bridge team. However, and again I assume a pilot was aboard, what baffles me that seemingly the tug did not get any orders to hold and/or pull back and that should not have been a communication problem because one can safely say that pilot and tug capt most probably speak the same language.

[Jimmy Christie]

...Of course one does not know what was going on on the bridge, if the thruster went down a kind of confusion (I don,t want to call it panic) could have set in, like someone tries to check fuses / calling engine etc. and possible the people on the bridge did not pay attention for a while to the surroundings (Situation awareness)...

Yes, I was thinking along those lines myself. There have been a few serious accidents in the aviation business where the flight deck crew became so obsessed with a relatively minor problem, like a defective warning light, that to all intents and purposes they forgot to fly the aircraft and crashed.

J

[Dеnis]

Ted, you can see few guys on the aft looking down at the boats being damaged.  I'm sure those on the bridge were aware of what's happening but couldn't do anything at that time for some reason.

[Captain Ted]

Denis
Peoples on the aft deck means not necessarily that on the bridge all goes ok or that they are aware of it. One would think so,, but I would not make a bet on that

[Dеnis]

Aren't the deckhands have radio sets? 

And I'm sure from the bridge it was visible that they're hitting the boats or at least around them.

[Captain Ted]

Yes Denis,,but for that you have to be outside and look that way,,look my previous post,,there can be various reason why nobody lookd that way. On some ships, special smaller ones it is not the norm that all have radios,,often only the station officer. Therefore plenty of things what can go wrong, like a chain