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Bulk carrier blamed for two Suez Canal collisions within 13 hours

The 'Panamax Alexander' was involved in two collisions just 13 hours apart in the Suez canal after failing to moor properly after the first pile-up, a London judge has ruled. The ship swung out from her moorings just as a convoy of northbound ships was preparing to pass on one of the narrowest stretches of the canal on July 16, 2018. The container ship 'NYK Orpheus' nearly managed to stop before striking the bulk carrier, but had been sailing too fast and had an inadequate lookout, said Mr Justice Andrew Baker in a ruling in London’s Admiralty Courts. The 'Panamax Alexander' had been moored up at the side of the canal after its propeller and rudder were damaged in a three-ship collision the previous day. The Suez Canal Authority gave permission for the convoy to pass the vessel and two tugs that were due to tow the damaged vessel. Two ships passed safely but the third was travelling too fast, causing the 'Panamax Alexander' to break its mooring The stern of the vessel swung out into the canal and was hit by the 'NYK Orpheus', the fourth vessel in the convoy, puncturing a cargo hold and ballast tank. The judge ruled that the bulk carrier crew had been negligent in using only six mooring lines instead of 10 – and the crew failed to quickly raise the alarm when they realised that something was going wrong. The “Panamax Alexander’s imprudently inadequate mooring is the root cause of all that followed and was a serious failure of good seamanship on board that stricken ship. Had Alexander been properly moored, she would not have broken free so as to become a danger to Orpheus,” the court ruled. A court in 2020 found that the 'Panamax Alexander' was 100 % to blame for the initial collision after failing to stop in time after another vessel on the eight-ship convoy grounded after suffering mechanical problems. Lawyers acting for the 'Panamax Alexander' said, the boxships in the convoy the following day should have waited until the bulker was towed away before passing through the canal. They also claimed that the 'NYK Orpheus' and the ship that preceded it, the 'NYK Falcon', now the 'One Falcon', were sailing too quickly. Justice Baker said on Nov 11, 2022, that the 'Panamax Alexander' and the 'NYK Orpheus' should pay 42 % of the damages to the other ship. He ruled that the 'YK Falcon' played a lesser role in the collision but should pay 17 % of the 'Panamax Alexander'’s damages. But he also raised concerns about the seamanship of the three vessels and found that officers were “passive and insufficiently in command” as they were “blindly” following the instructions of the Suez pilots. Concerns expressed by the pilots about passing the Alexander were not passed on or discussed with the ships’ officers, partly because of language difficulties, said the judge.