tim's experiment

I am glad to see that somebody besides me (column by Albert Cheng in the Post the other day) is puzzled by the legal ongoings consquent on the fatal collision during the last National Day fireworks.
The skippers of both the boats concerned have been charged with manslaughter. On the face of it this is very odd. The Rules for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea are quite simple, of great antiquity and known to all professional seafarers. If you are overtaking another vessel it is up to you to keep clear. If you are on converging courses it is up to the helmsman with the other boat on his right to keep out of its way. If you are actually heading straight for each other then both should turn right. It appears from the evidence given at the Commission of Inquiry that one of the captains followed the rules and one did not. Actually this is not a great forensic feat because it was quite obvious from the location of the damage. It follows that the other captain did what he was supposed to do. So one wonders why he is also in the dock.

This is not the only questionable feature of the whole case. It seemed to me that the Commission wasted a great deal of time on rather irrelevant matters. No doubt this owed much to the legal talent for exploiting any opportunity to expend billable hours on a client’s behalf. Much attention was given, for example, to the fact that the chairs on the boat which sank were not securely screwed to the deck. But why should they be? This was a ferry, not a roller coaster. Fixing the chairs to the floor is just a convenience to increase the seating capacity. More luxurious boats of the same size have the furniture entirely free, as it is on land. Then there was the matter of the missing watertight door. Watertight doors are important and useful on warships, where one generally knows when someone is going to try to blow a hole in the hull. The doors can be closed when you go to Action Stations. They are useful also in large ocean liners like the Titanic, on which they can be closed remotely from the bridge in moments of crisis. On a small boat the door, if it leads anywhere useful, will probably be wedged open anyway.

It seems from the evidence produced that the Marine Department’s ship inspections are as effective and serious as the rather similar exercises inflicted on local universities. But the fact that some plates were a bit thinner than they were on the plans did not seem terribly relevant. They are not designed to stand up to being rammed anyway.

It may be that the Commission’s report will correct some of these deficiencies. I hope so. Because so far a great deal of attention has been given to what happened or should have happened after the collision, but nobody seems to have considered that perhaps we should try to make collisions less likely. It is strange for the Marine Department to issue notices before firework displays urging boat owners to check their lifejacket supplies and make a list of their passengers. People do not float any better if they are on a passenger list. Wearing life jackets makes sense on yachts and racing boats, whereon occasional accidents are part of the game. Ferry passengers do not sign up for swimming lessons. If the department really thinks that collisions are more likely on firework nights why does it not consider methods to make the traffic safer?

They might start by considering the speed limit. On old charts of Victoria Harbour a speed limit is marked, but this it seems is no longer enforced. Whenever I get on a catamaran ferry the driver whips it up to cruising speed within a minute of leaving the pier. This may be perfectly safe on a normal day, but this means rules framed in the days when most ships puttered about at 8 knots are now being applied by ferries doing more than 20. On nights when the harbour is going to be very crowded we could perhaps insist that drivers give the battle cruiser speeds a break. No doubt the department has experts who can suggest other possibilities. They should start from the point of view that we wish to eliminate collisions, not just make it easier to count the casualties afterwards.