The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades • Hacker News Board

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#151

Post by quadyeast » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

gregschlom wrote: post #51

I don't see anyone here commenting on this, but there's an interesting software / UI angle in this story: the captain preferred the fancier, animated-map-style weather reports from a 3rd-party company (B.V.S. reports) to the more terse text-only reports from the National Hurricane Center (sat-C reports). Turns out, the B.V.S reports were using raw data that was 10 to 12 hours old - and they didn't explicitly mention…

Reminded me of this aircraft accident where the time delay of radar satellite datalink weather information was critical. The time delay there is minutes not hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83uvKWJS2os

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#152

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #74

doughj3 wrote: post #23

For anyone interested in stories like these, I highly recommend "Normal Accidents" by Charles Perrow - there's an entire chapter on maritime accidents.

Seconded, Normal Accidents is one of the best books I've ever read. In addition to the maritime accidents, there are chapters on nuclear plants, chemical plants, and dams. It is a great discussion of how modern industrial accidents rarely have a single cause but instead are cascade failures of systems whose complexity has evolved beyond what we can handle, and presaged many of the messes we've got into with hyper-sca…

Comp.risks has a lot of raw source material, and its moderator, Peter G. Neumann, has published a few books.

Ex-Goggler Yonatan Zunger has had some really good recent essays at, variously, Medium, Twitter, the Boston Globe, and Google+ (for which he was chief architect, and despite its general lack of widespread success, I consider his contributions and lessons-learned experience quite positively).

And he's a fan of Perrow.

Bruce Schneier's work is somewhat more focussed on crypto and security, but covers much this ground, especially later works.

Shoshana Zuboff also addresses social impacts of computers and data systems in her work.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#153

Post by leeter » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #142

leeter wrote: post #136

What amazed me reading the report was just how vulnerable the ship was to sinking if it had a list during a storm. While an 18 degree list is extreme it's not unforeseeable in a serious emergency. The problem was this put ventilation openings at a height where they were directly subject to green water infiltration. To make it worse only the intakes were 'watertight' the exhausts were only 'weathertight' meaning that…

well there is a big gulf between storm and hurricane. if they had encountered a normal squall it is doubtful they would have been in trouble but they ran straight into a CAT3 hurricane which if you have experienced on land you know its not even remotely sane to be out in it.

True, but if you read the report even under non-insane circumstances the design of the ventilation system would have put the ship at risk in any gale or full gale situation. The main issue was the intakes were on the tween deck instead of the main deck and were outboard. Thus if the ship listed at all to the point where the tween deck was even partially submerged it risked serious flooding. This seems counter to the design of the ship where the tween deck was supposed to be open to the sea, but not awash certainly, but still in theory all fittings an openings on that deck should be able to be watertight. Indeed if you look at the report, the rest of the deck was.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#154

Post by slapshot » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #146

ams6110 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sort of surprised that data from a source like that is used. Have you ever seen the weather data that airline captains use? It looks like this: KORD 050251Z 26006KT 10SM SCT110 M02/M09 A3019 RMK AO2 SLP232 T10171089 53009 That's the current weather conditions for Chicago O'Hare. Looks like gibberish to you and me but airline captains know what it means and they know how old the observation is. Captain has ultimat…

You can't get licensed as a pilot without being able to read METARS. They will not let you fly. Find me a comparable licensure requirement for marine captains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_mariner#United_States

or from gCaptain, which is linked elsewhere in the thread as a source of info on this particular incident:

http://gcaptain.com/mariner/

it will take years of sea time and weeks of classes to even get your Able Seaman (AB) or 100 ton master license. If you want 500/1600 ton mate or masters then even more years of sea time and months of classes. All of these requirements are outlined by the Coast Guard, but they change the rules all the time. You are never really done; every five years, when you come up for your license renewal, you will have to take some refresher courses. Sadly, none of this may be completed while you are at work, but rather while you are on your off time. It is expensive to take these classes and while sometimes your company will pay for the classes, room, and board, don’t count on it.

(edit:format)

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#155

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #146

ams6110 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sort of surprised that data from a source like that is used. Have you ever seen the weather data that airline captains use? It looks like this: KORD 050251Z 26006KT 10SM SCT110 M02/M09 A3019 RMK AO2 SLP232 T10171089 53009 That's the current weather conditions for Chicago O'Hare. Looks like gibberish to you and me but airline captains know what it means and they know how old the observation is. Captain has ultimat…

You can't get licensed as a pilot without being able to read METARS. They will not let you fly. Find me a comparable licensure requirement for marine captains.

It's been many years, so I can't refer you to a specific paragraph in 46 CFR (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/46/part-310), but during my training as a Merchant ship's officer I was required to (a) take a Meteorology 101 class, (b) read and understand data from the weather FAX at sea and (c) when on watch, make weather observations and report them to NOAA hourly.

I think that's close enough.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#156

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

hyperpallium wrote: post #92

Luc wrote: post #4

I could tell from the title this was going to be written by William Langewiesche. He really knows how to spin a good yarn. All his articles and books seem to be movie-worthy. I'm not entirely convinced reality is that exciting, though.

The banter at the start reminded me of the start of Aliens . As transcript quotes, I assume it means James Cameron based it on reality. The reality in this case was far, far more exciting than you ever want. If anything, the captain had a preternaturally professional calm. > ship’s anemometer was in disrepair and had been for weeks Can't measure wind; the co. didn't subscribe to hourly updates; a "software glitch" ga…

That's a really interesting observation. I first saw Alien with my roommate soon after we had both graduated from Merchant Marine school and he laughingly made a similar comment: "typical sailor behavior."

And honestly, experienced Merchant officers have seen so much shit, it's hard to get them rattled.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#157

Post by boomka » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

foobarbazetc wrote: post #119

What’s really interesting about this is the sort of horror film aspect to these situations where everyone gets a bad feeling of impending doom but they push forward anyway. People should trust that instinct. Takes a lot of effort to pull away from the brink, but you should do it. 100% of the time.

The article pointed out that couple years earlier the captain did exactly as you suggest and pulled away from the brink because of safety concerns. His company punished him immediately with a big demotion.

It seems clear that the culture in the industry is set up to weed out those who want to err on the side of safety, and reward those who err on the side of maintaining their shipping schedules.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#158

Post by eastbayjake » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

aglionby wrote: post #18

clon wrote: post #13

> She called Davidson on the house phone and told him that the hurricane was now a Category 3. He knew that already. She proposed the escape route to the south and a smooth sail on to San Juan. He rejected her suggestion. I wonder if in the maritime world there is the equivalent of CRM (Cockpit Resource Management), as in aviation. Too many lives were lost due to 1st officer never taking over command when the error i…

There is: bridge resource management. It actually grew out of CRM. Section 2.7 of the NTSB report (linked elsewhere in this thread) gives an overview of it and discusses how it played a role in this incident. It's an interesting read and seems to be relatively in-depth.

Thank you for sharing. Sections 2.6 ("Captain's Decision-Making") and 2.7 are excellent case studies in leadership and authority -- especially the parts about "power distribution" and promoting a culture of open feedback.

The recommendations for the crew to "issue a direct command or to use a crew obligation statement — a statement in which the subordinate obligates the senior crewmember as part of the navigational team by using language such as 'we should' or 'our route'" is excellent. People who need to "manage up" at their jobs can start doing this today.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#159

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

saturationPoint wrote: post #149

jacquesm wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect my comments in the thread about the Google shooting gained me a fresh batch of enemies.

If you look at the numbers for this site, these days, HN is too popular for it's own good, and it's getting really noisy. On the front page right now, there are lots of garbage articles, with 500+ upvotes and comments, and any one of them handily enables new downvoters. Way more people can downvote now, than ever before, and users relish new power. Having a respectful honor system, and some voting ring detection is g…

[deleted]

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#160

Post by pontifier » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

Ok, this article was the last straw. I've disabled javascript. It was impossible to read this article without it scrolling every few seconds for some ad script.