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I'm sure that the mate will be prosecuted as well. And I'm sure his credentials will be brought into question.
Acording to The Day
A month before the oil spill in Buzzards Bay, the same mate caused a barge to collide with a dock in Philadelphia, according to the criminal charge. No oil was spilled, but the dock was damaged. The captain of the barge said the accident occurred because the mate approached the dock at a fast rate of speed and then made “corrections” that caused the barge to hit the dock.
The captain of the Evening Tide also called Bouchard headquarters to complain about the mate, but he remained assigned to the tugboat
If all this is in fact true, he is screwed.
With respect to directing the barge out to sea, there are issues with not allowing a damaged vessel into a port of refuge to minimize damage and potential loss of life.
Now we don't know what information the Coast Guard had about the vessel when they directed it to safe harbor. We also don't know how they obtained that information. Was is first hand or was it from the ship itself.
There has been many a convention by the International Maritime Organization about just this issue. Here is a brief excerpt.
New guidelines on places of refuge for ships in need of assistance were adopted. These guidelines are intended for use when a ship is in need of assistance but the safety of life is not involved. Where the safety of life is involved, the provisions of the SAR Convention should continue to be followed. The guidelines recognize that, when a ship has suffered an incident, the best way of preventing damage or pollution from its progressive deterioration is to transfer its cargo and bunkers, and to repair the casualty. Such an operation is best carried out in a place of refuge. However, to bring such a ship into a place of refuge near a coast may endanger the coastal State, both economically and from the environmental point of view, and local authorities and populations may strongly object to the operation. Therefore, granting access to a place of refuge could involve a political decision that can only be taken on a case-by-case basis. In so doing, consideration would need to be given to balancing the interests of the affected ship with those of the environment. A second resolution, Maritime Assistance Service (MAS), recommends that all coastal States should establish a maritime assistance service (MAS).
The principal purposes would be to receive the various reports, consultations and notifications required in a number of IMO instruments; monitoring a ship's situation if such a report indicates that an incident may give rise to a situation whereby the ship may be in need of assistance; serving as the point of contact if the ship's situation is not a distress situation but nevertheless requires exchanges of information between the ship and the coastal State, and for serving as the point of contact between those involved in a marine salvage operation undertaken by private facilities if the coastal State considers that it should monitor all phases of the operation.
Much of this came from a tanker off the Spanish coast last year that was denied refuge and sunk which created an even larger disaster. Most of this was probably transparent to this country since it was not in our back yard.
Much like beamie, I am a licensed engineer. I don't work for Bouchard (actually I am not even sailing on my license) but these issues are near and dear to me. Not just from a professional perspective, but also as a sportsman
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