Steering gear failure is likely to have been the initial cause of a collision between three ships at the port of Bremerhaven on 20 November 2016.
According to a German accident report, at 1.53am the 1,404-dwt, multipurpose ship Meridian (built 1969) — “with no discernable alternation in course or speed” — sailed into the moored 2,500-teu containership NewYorker (built 2001).
The Meridian then hit the quay, before coming into contact with the 19,154-teu MSC Diana (built 2016).
The NewYorker and MSC Diana were barely touched by the collision but the Meridian’s fore section and the quayside were badly damaged.
Faulty control system
Germany’s Federal Bureau of Marine Casualty Investigation (BSU) said it had established that there had been a fault with the Meridian’s steering gear control system.
The helmsmen dropped speed when he realised the steering gear was not responding. However, BSU suggested more action could have been taken by the helmsmen to avoid the collisions.
He could also have manually overridden the electronic steering and switched to hand steering, but he did not due to the pressure of the moment.
“That this did not happen can probably be explained by the lack of time and the anxiety that started to take control of the helmsmen,” BSU said.
He could have also decelerated by dropping the anchor but did not. He also failed to warn shipping in the area by sounding the general alarm or using VHF, BSU concluded.
