This is not the first time that the power of this class of ship has been underestimated, and
groundings while under pilotage have happened before.
• Designed to operate in river currents, these ships are not as manoeuvrable in cross-tidal
streams.
• The pilot was not fully prepared for the ship’s lack of power and the effect on the course
over the ground of cross-tidal currents.
• A leading or directional light at Fisher’s Nose would have helped the pilot keep the ship on
track while approaching Cobbler Channel and to enter the channel on an ideal heading.
• The harbour's pilots, in consultation with the master, would base their decision on whether
or not they needed tug assistance, on the vessel's manoeuvrability, weather conditions
and if there were any ship defects. Pilots had received no formal guidelines on the use of
tug assistance.
• Because the pilot/master exchange was not as thorough as good practice requires, it did
not reveal the special manoeuvring characteristics of this type of ship.
• A navigational checklist had been signed to verify that a completed pilot’s card had been
given to the pilot; the proposed passage plan, weather conditions, mooring securing
devices, the use of tugs and other external equipment had been explained by the pilot
and agreed by the captain, and the captain and officer of the watch were monitoring the
progress of the ship and execution of commands. Some of these items on the checklist
either had not been carried out or had been carried out only superficially.
• There was no ship’s passage plan for the pilotage area of Plymouth harbour to Victoria
Wharf. Annex 25 of SOLAS Chapter 5 states that detailed planning should be made for the
whole voyage, or passage from berth to berth.
Safety Issues
3 METHODOLOGY
The methodology adopted in this paper is integrated
into two main phases. The first phase is to define
algorithms to detect the traffic definitions as Traffic
Density and Traffic Distribution in the utilized AIS
data; and the second phase was implementing
statistical hypothesis testing in order to find whether
there is any correlation between the traffic and the
historical location of the grounding accident using the
defined algorithms.
2 DATA
In order to analyze the possible correlation between
the traffic of ships and the grounding accidents, two
different sources of historical data are used as: 1‐
HELCOM (Helsinki Commission) database regarding
the ship accidents happened in the Baltic Sea area
within the years of 1989 and 2010; 2‐ HELCOM AIS
(Automatic Identification System) data on marine
traffic in the GOF in year 2010.
The first dataset that is utilized in this paper is
HELCOM database regarding the ship accidents
previously occurred in the Baltic Sea area, including
Gulf of Finland, between the years of 1989 and 2010.
The data consist of inputs such as the date and time of
the accident, geographical coordinate of the accident,
type of the accident, flag states of the involved ships,
name of the involved ships, whether the accident
caused any pollution, and type and amount of the
possible pollution. From among all the available fields
in the database, the only input values that have been
utilized in this research are the type and the location
of the accident. Although the database was not
flawless, especially regarding the ship and cargo
properties and crew competences, when it comes to
the data useful for the purpose of this study, the only
problem that was needed to be addressed seems to be
the wrong recorded location of the accident that in
some cases were reported in land areas.
AKNOWLEDGMENT
This study was conducted as a part of “Minimizing
risks of maritime oil transport by holistic safety
strategies” (MIMIC) project. The MIMIC project is
funded by the European Union and the financing
comes from the European Regional Development
Fund, The Central Baltic INTERREG IV A Programme
2007‐2013; the City of Kotka; Kotka‐Hamina Regional
Development Company (Cursor Oy); Centre for
Economic Development, and Transport and the
Environment of Southwest Finland (VARELY).