Gas Ares after the incident. (Source: U.S. Coast Guard}
The National Transportation Safety Board has launched its report on a November 25, 2021 incident involving a 754-foot-long, 106-foot-wide LPG provider, the Gas Ares, that led to greater than $1 million in damages.
The vessel was transiting upbound on the Neches River in Port Neches, Texas, when it struck the outermost of two harbor tugs moored alongside the no. 1 loading dock on the Motiva Port Neches Terminal.
The tug Sabine was outboard on the channel facet with the tug Florida moored inboard and alongside the dock, each going through up river.
The Sabine’s mooring broke, and the tug was pushed into the adjoining tug Florida and moved up river. The Florida, which had 4 crewmembers on board, was pushed towards the dock however remained moored.
The Gas Ares’s port bow sustained minor injury consisting of an indentation and scratch within the shell plating above the waterline. No postcasualty survey was carried out.
- The Sabine sustained injury to its starboard foremost engine/generator stack plating, anchor dealing with increase, onboard picture recording system, and about 11 toes of its starboard bulwarks and starboard rubber fendering. The price of repairs was about $34,000.
- The Florida sustained injury to its no. 2 port wing gasoline tank and starboard-side shell plating close to the engine room. The price of repairs was about $56,000.
- The Motiva no. 1 dock sustained injury to its pilings, metal beams that supported the concrete deck, the concrete floor, and mooring dolphins.2 The price of repairs was estimated to be $967,000.
At the time of the incident, the Gas Ares was underneath the navigational management of a state licensed pilot from the Sabine Pilots.
ANALYSIS
Following is the NTSB report’s evaluation of the incident:
“As the 106-foot-wide Gas Ares was transiting by the Neches River at half forward at 8.1 knots, at 2208, the pilot of the Gas Ares hailed the outbound 688-foot-long tow Chad Douglas and proposed a starboard-to-starboard passing. Setting the vessel as much as meet the tow, the pilot of the Gas Ares favored the left (south) a part of the 400-foot-wide navigation channel—the identical facet the place vessels had been moored on the Huntsman and Motiva docks. At 2212, about 4 minutes after arranging the passing, the pilot ordered the Gas Ares to useless sluggish forward to keep away from making a wake because the LPG provider handed a pipeline removing mission (to starboard exterior of the navigation channel), and about 6 minutes later, the vessel was solely making about 3.8 knots. The pilot’s choice to order the vessel’s pace decreased in anticipation of passing the pipeline removing mission was what initiated the eventual collision with the Sabine on the Motiva no. 1 dock.
“As the Gas Ares approached the Huntsman dock (where an ATB was moored), Motiva dock no. 2 (where the 144-foot-wide tanker Wonder Polaris was moored), and the Chad Douglas tow, the pilot faced a close-quarters passing with the vessels moored at each dock. The pilot had the tug Hayley Moran—which had been made fast to the stern of the Gas Ares—pull the Gas Ares’s stern to starboard to keep it from falling onto the Wonder Polaris. At the same time, she issued rudder and engine orders intended to keep the LPG carrier from falling farther south and point its bow back into the channel. North-northwesterly winds at 18–27 knots exerted pressure on the exposed (in-ballast) starboard-side hull above the waterline (the 0.4-knot current likely had little impact on the immersed portion of the hull). Thus, the vessel—which was already on the left side of the narrow channel for the passing arrangement with the Chad Douglas tow—was set farther toward the left and the Huntsman and Motiva docks. With the pilot’s ordered reduction of the ship’s speed, the Gas Ares’s rudder became less effective, and the pilot was not able to move the vessel to starboard and away from the nearby moored vessels by rudder and engine alone. The pilot’s efforts to use the stern tug to pull the Gas Ares’s stern back to starboard and the center of the channel caused the LPG carrier’s bow to point more toward the left side of the channel and moored vessels. Without enough headway, the pilot was unable to steer the vessel back to the center of the channel and avoid striking the moored Sabine at the Motiva no. 1 dock.”
PROBABLE CAUSE
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the possible explanation for the collision between the liquefied petroleum gasoline provider Gas Ares and the tug Sabine, moored alongside the tug Florida on the Motiva Port Neches Terminal no. 1 loading dock, was the pilot’s choice to cut back the vessel’s pace to be able to create much less wake when passing a pipeline removing mission, inflicting a lack of rudder effectiveness in robust crosswinds that set the provider towards moored vessels.
- As all the time, there’s very far more within the full NTSB report.
