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1 INTRODUCTION

EMSA was set up as a regulatory agency that would

provide a major source of support to the European

Commission and the member states in the field of

maritime safety, security and prevention of pollution

from ships. The Agency was established by

Regulation

and implementation of EU legislation on maritime

safety, pollution by ships and maritime security. It has

also been given operational tasks in the field of oil

pollution response, vessel monitoring and in long-

range identification tracking of vessels. Every year

EMSA is collecting reports and data about incidents

which: involve ships flying a flag of one of the

European Union Member State; occur within EU

Member States’ territorial waters as defined in

UCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of

the Sea); or involve other substantial interests of EU

(pic.1) below shows simplified model of ship’s

accident report made with EMCIP. Thanks to use of

very simple structure, report is easy to do. According

to last annual report about 60% of incidents is

reported by shore authorities, 23% of reports come

from companies and about 12% from ships. As

statistics show during last 5 years their total amount is

similar every year and stays on the level of around

3000 reports per year.

DMAIB is in charge of investigation of accidents

ABSTRACT: Work shortly analyses statistics of maritime casualties registered by European Maritime Safety

Agency (EMSA) for years 2014-2019 and gives short description of chosen collisions that took place in last ten

years. Article points out main causes of navigational accidents and the need to keep improving navigators skills

and operation of systems available on board to minimalize risk of collision or grounding due to human error. In

this work very small sample is presented and author mainly focuses on European waters and incidents

As statistics show navigational accidents are still

Fig. 3 shows that the fall of number of accidents is

not continuous. There are years like 2016 when

number of incidents classified as contact is visibly

lower but it averages around 380 accidents a year.

Same for collisions. Even though number of collision

2014 – 2018 it was over 1200 ships involved every

year. In year 2019 number is slightly lower but still

over 1000. Second biggest group are passenger ships.

Their number averages around 560 vessels involved in

accidents every year. And the third group would be

fishing vessels with average of 340 vessels per year.

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comparing to departures.

About 50% of all recorded accidents in years 2014 –

2019 took place on internal waters, 27% on territorial

sea and only 18,6% on open waters (fig. 6). Most of the

navigationally restricted waters like passages, port

As visible in fig. 6 cargo ships and passenger

vessels are the most accident prone on internal waters

and territorial seas. On open waters lead is taken by

cargo ships and fishing vessels. That may be caused

by the fact that little of passenger ships is spending

long time in open seas as they have a lot of ports on

their routes and stay a lot within territorial waters.

Fishing vessels depends on their specifics will be

engaged in fishing on shallows closer to shore

(territorial waters) or on deeper waters of open seas.

target and acquisition of it. Secondly not enough time

for ARPA to show accurate data of acquired target. It

is clearly stated that at 0935 neither master nor third

officer were aware of warships presence in the area.

First observations of them was made few minutes

later when third officer reset trails to true and first of

the echoes was clearly distinguished from the buoys.

Second echo was not recognized properly until only

minutes before collision.

for of safe speed and discretionary space based on

their previous experience and perception of risk.

Within that discretionary space the officer can and

should take any necessary action to avoid immediate

danger.

During the investigation DMAIB did not find any

clues suggesting that ships equipment experienced a

failure. Both ships were operating in restricted

visibility in a narrow geographical area constricted by

shallow waters. As investigation of 311 Kazanets was

clues on the radar screen only few minutes left to

decide on a maneuver to avoid collision. Secondly

lack of decision to make big course alteration due to

uncertainty of 311 Kazanets course and intentions,

and restricted waters around Ice Rose. So when there

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was no course alteration from Kazanets the collision

became reality.

A bulk carrier SPRING GLORY was en route from

Singapore (Singapore), where she loaded iron ore,

towards Qingdao (China). Container vessel

JOSEPHINE MAERSK was on her way from Port

Chalmers (New Zealand) to Tanjung Pelepas

The SPRING GLORY’S radar was set to 6 nm range

head up, off centre and relative motion, ARPA was

not in use, but 3 minutes long true trails were used.

Radar had AIS overlay. About 17 minutes before

collision radar range was changed to 12 miles for

short moment. Then JOSEPHINE MAERSK could

SPRING GLORY maintained course and speed. 4

minutes before collision duty officer of SPRING

GLORY tried to establish communication with

JOSEPHINE MAERSK. That was successful at first but

later communication on channel 15 failed. A minute

before collision and after few missed trials to

communicate over the radio SPRING GLORY was put

to hard turn to port.

On JOSEPHINE MAERSK 3rd officer took watch at

20.00. He had an able seaman for a lookout duty on

vessels), nor did lookout. Duty officer was

concentrated on starboard side traffic and port turn

that he had to do to enter TSS. SPRING GLORY

became visible on the radar at a distance of approx. 11

nm and was visible on the radar until collision. About

10 minutes before collision SPRING GLORY was

visible on the radar screen at a distance of approx. 5

nm and it could be identified on AIS (fig. 10).

About 5 minutes before collision duty officer

observed green light at about 2 nm distance on his

port side bow. That was first moment duty officer

observed SPRING GLORY. He heard VHF call, but as

mentioned before communication was not effective. 2

minutes before collision he initiated hard turn to

starboard and called master on the bridge. Master

hurried to the bridge as he felt ship’s turn but when

he arrived ships very close to each other with

JOSEPHINE MAERSK being still in starboard turn.

Rule 6 (Safe Speed), Rule 15 (Crossing situation), Rule

16 (Action by Give-way Vessel) and Rule 17 (Action

by Stand-on Vessel).

Neither of the vessels managed to notice each other

presence. In this situation SPRING GLORY was a

give-way vessel and should have turn to starboard to

give way to JOSEPHINE MAERSK approaching from

her starboard bow.

No data from VDR was retrieved as STAVFJORD

port side will give him way according to COLREG

rules. Because of BUSTERS construction skipper had

no chance to see traffic on the port side of the vessel.

He also could not see signals given with ALDIS lamp

from STAVFJORD.

RIG was general cargo vessel underway from Riga

(Latvia) to Keadby (UK) with cargo of timber on

driven by only one person – skipper that perished in

the accident.

At the time of accident RIG was underway along

Route T, visibility was good, force 3 winds and a

slight sea. Rig radar was set on 3 nm range, 0,5

distance rings, trails, north up and relative motion.

Image on the radar was clear. Officer of the watch was

familiar with traffic patterns in the area of accident as

he sailed these waters before. Overview of the

accident position is shown in figure 13.

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Both of the ships were equipped with AIS and

radars. INGER MARIE was on 245° with 8 knots of

speed. RIG was on a north-westerly course of 341 with

speed over ground of 9 knots. The ships courses did

not change within 60 minutes before the collision

occurred. The visibility was good and ships were in

sight of each other with no significant change of

bearing. At about 0535 RIG was in similar situation

with other fishing vessel with RIG taking initiative to

alter course to starboard to avoid collision.

restricted in her draught, as that was AIS status

advised by the pilot. Pilot also was keeping Kraslava

closer to the center of the Channel to avoid shallow

waters located just aside of it. Going out of dredged

channel may have cause the risk of grounding the

vessel. Atlantic Lady also had a status of constrained

by her draught but was not giving any fog signals. She

was planning to pass buoy no. 16 and then initiate

turn to starboard to go along eastern part of the

Channel. Master of Atlantic Lady, on the grounds of

his experience, presumed that Kraslava would hold a

position on the westerly side of a channel and allow

Atlantic Lady to turn into easterly side of it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY