Two bulk carriers suffered heavy damage after colliding in the Spanish port of Tarragona in the early afternoon of Saturday.
A 75,500 dwt Elena Ve owned by Greece’s Golden Union struck moored Polsteam’s 82,100 dwt Karpaty while proceeding to berth with tugs’ assistance.
The video footage available on social media shows the 2013-built Polish kamsarmax sustained significant damage to the port side. The bow of the Greek panamax has also been severely damaged, both on the side and on the deck.
The 2010-built Elena VE arrived at Tarragona after a 14-day voyage carrying wheat from Chornomorsk port in Ukraine. The cause of the collision is still unknown.
The nautical definition of an ALLISION is “the running of one ship upon another ship that is stationary.” The distinction between it and a ‘COLLISION ’ is that in the latter, both ships are moving.
It is never too late to learn and we learn as we go, therefeore is there anybody here, who could provide some sensible input on the application of COLREGS between two vessels in described above situation.
There may be a catch (and i am speculating here) , as the Karpaty crew could have forgotten to switch AIS from “underway” to “mored” mode and the bridge team (pilot included) of the Elena VE was glued to their electronic means of navigation , without bothering to look out of the window which is a disturbingly widening practice of nintendo generation.
” IN ECDIS ,AIS,GPS WE TRUST” – new holy trinity of modern days navigation.