CASE STUDY: SINKING OF THE OCEANOS
The South African coast is well known for its strong gale-force winds and sea storms. Along with this weather, there is a strong current running the entire length of the coastline, sometimes reaching a speed of up to six knots (12 km) per hour. Known as the Agulhas current, the waves can reach a height of 30 metres during a storm. In the past, these conditions caused many ships to wreck along the coast.
The Oceanos was a 153-metre passenger ship. There was a seven-metre vertical distance between the waterline and the hull of the ship, which represented the minimum depth of water that the ship could sail in. The ship was built in 1952 as a cargo ship. In 1983 it was refurbished as a passenger liner that could accommodate 516 passengers and 200 crew members. Notwithstanding the changes that were made to the interior of the ship when it was refurbished, it was not a model passenger liner. There were six decks that made provision for passenger cabins, restaurants, casinos, lounges and a swimming pool. The lowest deck was for the crew and below this deck were the bowels of the ship, including the engine room, the generators and the propeller shafts that turned the two giant propellers.
In 1991 the Oceanos was chartered by a South African company for an eight-month cruise season from June to January the following year. The normal cruise season was from December to January during the summer when the weather was expected to be calmer than during the winter season from June to November every year. The change in dates could possibly be ascribed to a strategic decision to enhance the business of the company, especially in view of the fact that other cruise ships were operating in Europe or the Mediterranean during the summer season.
The Oceanos arrived in South Africa in 1991. The ship's captain, Yiannis Avranas, had 30 years' experience at sea. There were 200 sailors on the ship as crew members. In an interview with the captain, he jokingly remarked that if the ship should sink, he would be on the first lifeboat off the ship.
On the first day of a 12-day cruise, a passenger with experience and knowledge of maritime law remarked that the way the ship rolled in calm waters was unusual for a passenger ship. He was also unhappy with the status of the cabins and with the rusty lifeboat fittings. However, it was unlikely that the vessel was unseaworthy because the Lloyd's Register classification is applicable to all ships allowed in South African waters. However, when the ship sailed out of one of the harbours on this first cruise, the passengers on the open deck felt a shudder and thought the ship had hit the bottom. When the captain was asked if the ship had hit the bottom, he replied that it was nothing serious and that the ship had hit an underwater buoy. Apparently, the captain was quite arrogant when more passengers asked the same question. He dismissed the incident as not serious. It also seemed that neither the captain nor the crew did anything to investigate this incident. A procedure should have been followed to investigate the incident formally to determine precisely what had happened and whether the vessel had suffered any damage. It seemed that this was not done and that the captain accepted that any damage would be identified during a standard checking procedure of all systems that is carried out before a ship sets sail. However, the Oceanos was already on its way.
The ship sailed to Cape Town and back to Durban on 31 July 1991 in "huge seas", so much so that the pilot could not board the ship by helicopter to steer the ship out of the harbour. The high seas and bad weather continued until the ship docked in East London, where the passengers were allowed off the ship for two days. The ship was chartered for a wedding for these two days. The ship would leave the harbour for the wedding on Thursday and return on Saturday morning. However, on Friday the weather got worse, and most of the guests got seasick and could not attend the whole wedding ceremony. The ship returned to the harbour, and after a while the captain was pressurised by the wedding party to sail out to sea again. Once again, the passengers got seasick, and the ship returned to the harbour. The next morning the wedding passengers disembarked from the ship and the passengers set for Durban re-embarked. However, not all passengers re-embarked since some had decided to travel by other means due to the bad experience with the weather while sailing from Cape Town. The responsible crew did not check the passenger list thoroughly and accepted that all passengers had re-embarked. Consequently, there was no formal, complete passenger list, and it was assumed that all passengers had re-embarked.
The Oceanos was scheduled to sail at 15:00 on 3 August but it was delayed due to bad weather. The record of the height of the swells/waves on the sea on 3 August 1991 is indicated in table 1.
Table 1: Height of swells/waves
Time 3 August 1991 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00
Height of the swells in metres 2 m 3 m 2 m 3 m 3 m 4 m 5 m 6 m 9 m 11 m 13 m 12 m 11 m 10 m 12 m
Source: Fictitious data
A safe height of swells for a passenger liner is two to three metres. Swells that are four to five metres are risky and swells that are higher than 10 metres are dangerous for a passenger ship.
Despite swells ranging from six to ten metres, the captain decided to depart at 17:00. He reasoned that the ship had to set sail to Madagascar the next day and if the ship did not sail, it would inconvenience the passengers and upset the schedule for the next day. When the ship sailed, it was very much against the will and advice of some of the crew. Once again, the ship sailed in high seas. The crew started preparing for restaurant service and the evening's entertainment. However, due to the bad weather, most passengers stayed in their cabins. The spray was lashing the open decks. The captain was on the bridge and failed to ensure that the crew and the passengers participated in a safety drill in case of emergency.
In the meantime, the chief engineer was in the engine room watching the crew remove a venting pipe of the sewage system, which was blocked. This was an old system, and when the ship carried passengers (instead of cargo for which it was originally designed), the system tended to get blocked. While the crew was struggling to fix the pipes, an enormous wave hit the port side of the ship at around 22:00, knocking a steel chest of the hull and leaving a gap for water to rush in. A steel chest is a piping system that draws water from the sea for cooling purposes. The engineers tried to plug the gap, but to no avail and the water level was rising rapidly. The chief engineer arranged for the generators to be shut down. He sealed the engine compartment and went to the bridge where he told the captain that the ship was going to sink and that they should abandon ship. The captain asked why the ship would sink if the compartment was sealed off. The chief engineer informed him that the venting pipe of the sewage system had not been sealed off because they were still working on it. The captain 4 understood the problem that the water would flow through the sewage system throughout the ship, in which case it could not be contained.
However, the captain did not give the command to abandon ship. Some crew members knew what was happening and were running around in life jackets, which alarmed some of the passengers. Some of the crew were struggling to release the lifeboats, and several officers were already seated in the boats. Some passengers thought that a safety drill was underway but were informed by crew members that it was not a drill and that they should get their life jackets and move to the upper decks.
At 22:45 the captain reluctantly ordered a Mayday call. However, the communications were not working (because the generators had been shut down) and the radio officers transmitted the message in Morse code. Various stations received the distress call. After the captain had determined the position of the ship and sent it to the stations, he left the bridge. Passengers asked him what the situation was and he told them that the engine room was flooded. He still did not give the order to abandon ship and failed to inform the passengers that the ship was sinking.
Various actions were initiated by South African emergency services and the South African Defence Force (SADF) to assist the Oceanos. However, the captain and his crew left the bridge and nobody was manning the communications between the Oceanos, other ships and the SADF. The captain was also not one of the last of the crew to be rescued and abandoned the ship while some passengers were still on board. According to a standard operating procedure, the captain and the crew of a ship must only abandon the ship after the passengers have been rescued. Later, the communication function on the bridge was performed by one of the passengers.
Eventually, the Oceanos sank off the South African Wild Coast on 4 August 1991 at 13:30 (17 hours after it had set sail) in 10-metre swells. Although all passengers and crew were saved before the ship sank, major operational problems were encountered, which negatively affected a streamlined approach to abandoning the ship and ensuring everyone's safety. In addition, due to the absence of an updated passenger list, it was weeks before all the passengers were accounted for.
Analyse the case study and answer the related questions.
Question 4
Risk-based decisions are dependent on accurate risk information. Key risk indicators are used in operational risk management to generate risk information. With reference to the case study, the height of the swells can be regarded as risk information that the captain could have used to decide whether the ship should leave the harbour or not. Explain the concept of a leading or predictive indicator and provide a graph using the information in table 1 to illustrate the height of the swells on 3 August 1991. Clearly indicate the threshold and state whether you agree with the captain's decision to set sail at 17:00.