Learning the Lessons Of the Star Connecticut

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November 6, 1990, 7:30 p.m. As most people were glued to their television sets, watching election returns (slo-o-o-wly) roll in, at Barbers Point, Captain Ronald Pouch had other worries.

The 700-foot-long tanker in his command, the Star Texaco, had just been decoupled from the single-point mooring of HIRI, Inc. (a subsidiary of Pacific Resources, Inc.) and control of the ship returned from the mooring master back to Pouch.

The ship, under charter to PRI, was not yet headed to sea, and Pouch was being asked in effect to delay taking the ship to deeper water — to keep it heading in a northwesterly direction — so that two smaller boats could come alongside the tanker and pick up departing PRI workers and their gear.

Minutes before, at about 20 minutes past 7, he had been told by the skipper of towboat immediately to his rear that the water he was in was dangerously shallow.

The launch Keoki was taking “an inordinate amount of time” to load, Pouch later recalled thinking. At 7:33 p.m., Pouch ordered his tanker stopped to accommodate the Keoki and the Nene.

Eight minutes later, an anxious Captain Pouch, by now nearer to shore than he thought safe, announced over the radio that the attending vessels should keep clear, as he was turning to south whether they had all people on board or not. The “full ahead” order was given at 7:44.

By then it was too late. Sometime between 7:44 and 7:45, with the Star Connecticut on a westerly bearing, almost parallel to the coast, Pouch felt the shudder that every ship’s captain must dread. He ordered the ship full astern, then half ahead, then full stop.

The Star Connecticut, carrying 10 million gallons of oil products, had reefed.

A 4-inch hole had been punched in the ship’s hull. It had expanded to a diagonal crack, flooding the pump room with 28 feet of water. The double bottoms of the empty tanks below the engine room had completely flooded as well. Later estimates would calculate the repairs as costing at least $4 million. But not a drop of the ship’s cargo or its own fuel supply had spilled.

Attended by tows and tugs, the Star Connecticut was nursed through the night. As dawn began to break the next morning, the tide lifted the ship off the reef and the Star Connecticut was towed to deeper, safer waters.

The Post Mortem

On November 13, 14, and 15, the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board jointly convened a hearing into the grounding of the Star Connecticut. No official report will be available for many months. Nonetheless, from patterns in questions and testimony that emerged during the hearings, it is possible to identify some of the areas that the hearing board will likely address.

These areas may be sorted into two general categories. First would be the particular events that led to the grounding of the Star Connecticut. Second are those aspects of operations in the Barbers Point area that affect all navigation in the area, and which may have played a role in the grounding of the Star Connecticut as well.

A Well-Run Ship

As to the special circumstances of the Star Connecticut: First, astonishingly, the fathometer, or depth gauge, aboard the Star Connecticut is useless in waters shallower than about 600 feet. Captain Robert Spear, the man who was to have become the master of the ship after its planned sale (which was to have occurred November 23) and who was aboard the ship when it went aground, said one of the first things he would have done would have been to equip the vessel with a more sensitive fathometer, and place a readout for it on the bridge. Had Captain Pouch been able to see the depth of water he was in, he might have been alerted more quickly than he was to the fact that his ship was nearing a shoal area.

Second, the third mate who was on watch during departure was inexperienced. Although no one directly criticized his performance, it is possible (and likely) that a more seasoned mariner would have drawn the captain’s attention to the ship’s position plotted at the fix taken at 7:40. There was a more experienced third mate aboard the Star Connecticut. He was not on watch at the time of departure because he had not had enough rest prior to leaving to take on watch duties. Given the predictability of departure times, it might be advisable that in the future, work assignments be arranged so that the more experienced crew members are available for watch duty when the ship is especially vulnerable, such as at mooring and unmooring.

Otherwise, the Star Connecticut seems to have been run as well as any ship might be expected — and better than most, probably. Captain Pouch, 53 years old, is a sober man whose only addiction seems to be to Brach’s Starlight mints. As one of the hearing officers commented to us (off the record), there was no evidence of incompetence at all. Turnover among the crew was very low, which speaks volumes about their regard for Pouch. According to one of PRI’s mooring masters, the Star Connecticut was known to keep a “tight watch” when the ship was at the Barbers Point buoy. If the Star Connecticut could run aground, it would seem, any ship could.

Shifting Currents

During the hearing, the point was made repeatedly that currents at Barbers Point can change without warning. This played a substantial role in the grounding of the Star Connecticut. Captain Pouch believed that the current was either pushing his ship toward Diamond Head or was slack. In fact, it was carrying him in the direction of Barbers Point at a speed (he later calculated) that was twice as fast as he believed he was moving at the time.

As mooring masters approach the buoy, they take some pains to make certain they know the current. According to one of them, when a ship comes in for mooring, an assisting vessel is “sitting there with dead engines and seeing which way he turns.” When asked whether the mooring master actually asks the captain of that assist vessel for information on the current, Mooring Master Robert Rugur answered with an emphatic: “Oh, yes.”

The same concern for current is absent on unmooring, however. According to Rugur, “the currents are generally self-evident” at unmooring. In daylight, that might be so, when the direction of ropes and hoses in the water can be discerned. At night, however, the things that indicate current in the day are not so visible. Moreover, when currents are shifting (as they did the evening of November 6), the determination of the current at any one time cannot be relied upon as a useful indicator of current at any later point.

Too Much Traffic?

Captain Pouch testified that he thought his navigational options were limited November 6 by the presence of two small boats a mile to two miles south and west of the mooring buoy. Rather than try to pass between the closer of the two boats and the buoy, he thought he would have to pass on the outside.

Whether Pouch could have passed inside might be debated, but the very fact that he thought he was limited is itself sufficient cause to question the wisdom of allowing small boats in the area. Remember that while a mile may seem a fair distance off, for a 700-foot tanker, it’s the equivalent of just seven car lengths.

There is an imaginary box in the water around the single-point mooring, which defines an area of restricted anchorage. As explained by PRI’s acting port captain, William E. Heddaeus, this is a holdover from the old eight-point mooring of PRI, intended to keep boats from getting caught in anchor chains and pipes on the sea floor. It is not intended to keep boats out of the area, he testified (although other witnesses, including PRI mooring masters, seemed to think so).

Enlarging that “box” and keeping out all boats unrelated to tanker operations was recommended by several witnesses as a means of improving the safety of the PRI mooring area.

Why the Hurry?

One can argue whether or not the Keoki and the Nene took too long to board personnel departing the Star Connecticut. But it nonetheless seems clear that if Captain Pouch had not accommodated them and instead had sought to get his ship headed toward sea as quickly as possible, he probably could have made the turn toward deep water in time to avoid striking the reef.

While it may be customary for the mooring masters to leave the ship as soon as their work is done, it might not always be in the best interests of safety. According to Captain Pouch, who had commanded the Star Connecticut on seven previous uneventful visits to the PRI single-point mooring, it normally takes about 10 minutes from the time the ship is unmoored until it is heading toward sea. It would not be unreasonable to ask the Honolulu-based people to delay their departure until the ship is on a safe course toward deep water.

No Heroes, No Villains

It would be difficult to accuse PRI of rash disregard for safety. Recently, it decided it should have at all times two mooring masters aboard ships at the single-point mooring. This should lessen fatigue and enhance safe operations. On the other hand, there has been a rapid turnover among mooring masters. Of four mooring masters of record last May, three are no longer with PRI. Two new mooring masters have just recently ended their training period; in fact, the Star Connecticut was the first ship whose unmooring Captain Rugur had taken charge of without supervision. While he may have been acting in accordance with procedures, he may also have left undone some of the steps that mooring masters in the past had undertaken to make unmoorings safer and smoother.

Many other suggestions emerged during the three-day hearing. They ranged from the stunningly simple (if the pickup line had a reflective float on the end of it, it could be more easily seen in the dark) to the incredibly complex (declare the single-point mooring to be a pilotage area). While matters of culpability and liability will probably be sorted out in the courts for years to come, nothing should stand in the way of PRI, Texaco, the Coast Guard or the state of Hawai`i adopting these or any other reasonable measures they can in the meantime to improve navigational safety at Barbers Point.

Volume 1, Number 6 December 1990