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Montanan · 11-06-2019, 07:56

"Built in 1883, the Elbe No. 5 is Hamburg’s oldest wooden ship still in operation" collided with a containership on the Elbe River. Eight persons were injured and the vessel partially sunk when it was moved to a nearby estuary and is awaiting salvage operations. The 43 passengers were rescued safely as five rescue boats were nearby having responded to another accident a few hundred metres away. The prompt arrival mitigated the potential for loss of lives.

Reportedly a failed tack steered the 37 meter [121 feet] long sailing ship directly into the 150 meter Astrosprinter container ship’s path. The schooner had just recently undergone a nine month $1.7 million restoration.

Reference today's GCaptain article: https://gcaptain.com/historic-german...eid=5626ef2c30

And the South China Morning Post article:

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/euro...-5-sinks-after

**TrentePieds** · 13-06-2019, 14:32

Recently we had a discussion - prompted by a couple of accident involving USN ships - about the cavalier manner in which many treat COLREGs #5 and #8

This one is a little different because at the place in the river Elbe where the collision took place the river is about 1200 metres wide, i.e. a little over 1/2 NM, and along the northern bank is a marked channel about 1/4 NM wide, out of which the schooner, so it is said, was trying to stay.

She is an auxiliary, but was, at the time of collision, under sail alone. Word is that in her attempt to come about she missed stays and was struck by the freighter as she fell off on her old tack and moved into the path of the freighter rather than out of it. The underwriters will have fun with this one.

Many of us sail in waters that are also tricky and thick with commercial traffic. My own view of this episode is that no sensible master in a vessel this size and in possession of a good auxiliary would attempt to do what Elbe 5's skipper did here, i.e. proceed in a narrow channel, a TSS yet, under sail alone, down current, wind forward of beam.

An 85 foot, 52 ton schooner requires a competent, well trained crew of deck gorillas, a minimum of three, bei mir. Elbe 5 had only just returned from a refit, and - speculating here - the mouth of the Elbe is no place to do the training, any more than Active Pass in the Salish Sea would be.

For us, the denizens of CF, the old dictum that "any fool can learn from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others!" would seem to be apposite.

TrentePieds

Montanan · 13-06-2019, 14:58

Indeed if only she was operating with the aid of an iron jib perhaps the collision might not have been avoided. There apparently was just one serious injury arising from being hit by the foremast when it broke and fell on to the deck.

A tourist harbor excursion trip gone wrong.

Latitude 38 has an interesting article on the schooner, previously named Wander Bird which was located in Sausalito for six decades.

https://www.latitude38.com/lectronic...f-wander-bird/

DreadPirateRob · 25-06-2019, 00:42

The video from right before this collision popped up on reddit a few days ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=aXrTvVh4NOs

The clickbait title of the video should say "I dare you to keep your jaw from dropping when you see what they finally do with the tiller..."

I'm usually the one saying "Let's not armchair these situations, we don't know what it looked like or what else was going on..." But the video doesn't leave a lot of room for doubt. A dozen people stood on deck watching the two paths converge while a perfectly avoidable hazard became a marginally avoidable one, then when they finally did act... they did the exact wrong thing. I don't think you need the comfort of an armchair to decide to fall off to port and pass on the near side of them...

**Wotname** · 25-06-2019, 01:53

Here is the other thread (currently 7 pages long) on this subject.
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ip-219569.html

Mare Nostrum · 30-06-2019, 13:44

Indeed!! This was the result of compounded stupidity--the video proves it clearly. It is unfathomable how this could have occurred. I had to watch it 3 times to believe that I was actually watching such a stupid act !!

Mare Nostrum · 30-06-2019, 13:58

Here is the YouTube video that I saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-IXtX0G0_A

**TrentePieds** · 30-06-2019, 14:51

Probably not so unbelievable. Elbe 5 was apparently being employed as an excursion boat - a tourist attraction - by the Hafenstiftung Hamburg. The crew, as far as I can see from this brief clip, had had very little, if any instruction, but was pressed into service, such as it was, when the fit hit the shan. If you are rattled, as I think this crew must have been, and you are used to a wheel, it's easy to mess up if you are on a tiller!

One of the vessels blew five. Twice! There are two possibilities, but I can tell which is the one that obtains.

1) the schooner blew, in which case the implication is that she was insisting, against all common sense, that she was the stand on vessel and did what we all know not to do. She put herself under the bows of a big un. It is not surprising, if my surmise that the "crew" were really just tourists is right, and young with it, that they would have put the tiller to the side "they were told".

2) The freighter blew. The implication of that is, as we can easily verify by reference to the chart of the Elbe at that location, that she was buggered whatever she did. She couldn't turn, in that VERY narrow, and defined, channel, and she couldn't stop given her windage and her having the wind on her stbd quarter. Going dead in the water in that location and in those circumstances might very well have grounded her. Skipper would indeed have been on the horns of a serious dilemma: a) ground his ship and face the owners, or keep course and way on and hope for the best in the belief that the schooner was in competent hands.

Either way, in my estimation Elbe's skipper has a lot to answer for, and depending on just what his qualification are, so might the Stiftung whose employee I imagine he is, or was.

TP

S

DreadPirateRob · 30-06-2019, 17:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mare Nostrum

Indeed!! This was the result of compounded stupidity--the video proves it clearly. It is unfathomable how this could have occurred. I had to watch it 3 times to believe that I was actually watching such a stupid act !!

Right? Me too... I just kept thinking "There has to be something I'm missing. Nobody would... yup... they did."