Summary
On May 27, 2016, the US-flagged lake freighter (laker) Roger Blough ran aground near the Gros Cap Reefs Light off Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario, Canada. The grounding occurred as the vessel entered the Birch Point Course section of the St. Marys River federal navigation channel from Whitefish Bay in eastern Lake Superior. There were no injuries and no pollution reported. The vessel sustained $4.5 million in damage to its hull and cargo system.
Actions by the Company Following the Accident
Based on the Coast Guard investigating officer’s report of the accident, the company provided vessel information on the bridges of all vessels in its fleet and set speed restrictions in various waterways. Further, the company amended vessel deck department operations manuals to:
- reinforce the duties of deck officers in each bridge watch condition;
- ensure transit/passage planning is well documented in the master’s standing orders, including marking “no-go” areas; and
- reduce standing verbal orders by making them part of the master’s written standing orders or night orders.
The topics of the company’s annual fleet seminar training for its masters were lessons learned from the accident and ECPINS refresher training on “no-go” areas.
Additionally, the company installed Simplified Voyage Data Recorders (S-VDRs) on two of its vessels, with plans to install S-VDRs on all company vessels. VDRs maintain continuous, sequential records of data relating to a ship’s equipment and its command and control and capture bridge audio from certain areas in the pilothouse and on the bridge wings. S-VDRs are retrofitted on older vessels and are not required to capture all the parameters of a standard VDR.
Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the grounding of the lake freighter Roger Blough was the second mate’s failure to use all navigational resources to determine the ship’s position as it approached shallow water near Gros Cap Reefs. Contributing to the accident was inadequate monitoring of the vessel by Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) St. Marys River.
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Source: Duluth News Tribune
