The use a draft trip preparation device that included waypoint information mistakes plus a continuous technological mistake with the vessel tracking and also monitoring system for the Great Barrier Reef added to a freight ship’s basing on a shoal, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has actually ended.
The 81-meter basic freight ship Trinity Bay based on Harrington Shoal, a charted attribute with a deepness of 0.9 metres north-west of Harrington Reef, on the early morning of January 19, 2021 while performing a routine once a week flow from Thursday Island toCairns The ship continual small hull damages (some damages and also repaint removing), without injuries or air pollution reported, and also it was refloated increasing trend.
To resolve a shortage determined throughout a current interior audit, which needed using authorized courses and also waypoints, the ship’s master had actually made use of a draft flow preparation device that was being trialled by the driver to prepare brand-new courses.
The intended courses from the preparation device were become part of the Trinity Bay’s digital graph system, a navigating details system which showed the vessel’s placement and also pertinent maritime graph information. However, the digital graph system was not authorized for usage as the ship’s key ways of navigating and also did not have automated path safety and security inspecting features.
“Errors in the planning tool meant the new route took Trinity Bay dangerously close to the charted danger of Mid Rock, and then about an hour later directly over the charted danger of Harrington Shoal, where the ship grounded,” ATSB Director Transport Safety Stuart Macleod stated.
“The investigation found the new passage plan was not independently verified by another of the ship’s deck watchkeeping officers, as required by the operator’s procedures, and the planned routes were entered into the electronic chart system instead of being annotated on the ship’s paper charts. In accordance with chart carriage regulations, these paper charts were the ship’s primary means of navigation, and were marked with the ship’s established previously-used routes. Consequently, the dangers on the newly planned route were not identified, and the monitoring of the ship’s passage was ineffective in identifying these dangers.”
The ship’s driver, Sea Swift, ultimately eliminated Trinity Bay’s digital graph system from solution and also suggested the ATSB that it was exploring the installation of digital graph screen and also details systems (ECDIS) on its ships.
The ATSB’s examination additionally discovered that at the time of the basing a continuous technological mistake in the REEFVTS (Great Barrier Reef and also Torres Strait vessel website traffic solution) tracking and also monitoring system suggested the obligation driver at the VTS Centre in Townsville was existing with an extraordinarily high variety of wrong informs and also startles. REEFVTS displays and also interacts with ships to make certain secure and also effective navigating in Torres Strait and also the internal path of the Great Barrier Reef.
Among the authentic alarm systems gotten throughout that duration were cautions as Trinity Bay cruised near Mid Rock, and also once again as it came close to Harrington Shoal.
“Alerts associated with Trinity Bay were acknowledged by the duty operator but not followed up, due to the operator experiencing a sustained period of elevated workload, combined with a high level of expectancy that the ship was not at risk, as it frequently transited the area,” Macleod stated.
“Between the duty operator commencing their shift in Townsville at 0600, and when they were alerted by the ship’s master of the grounding at 0822, that operator received over 80 alerts from the REEFVTS monitoring and surveillance system, of which at least 42 were false, generated as a result of the system fault.”
Maritime Safety Queensland, which runs REEFVTS, has actually given that applied a software program upgrade for the system, minimizing the occurrence of duds. Further, the reporting location covered by REEFVTS was divided right into 2, a north and also a south location ran specifically from Townsville and also Gladstone, with a different driver in charge of each location.
