B1/2004M M/V FINNCLIPPER, grounding off Kapellskär 20.01.2004

Ro-Ro- / passenger vessel FINNCLIPPER left the Kapellskär harbors pier No.4 on 20.01.2004 at 02.03 Finnish time towards Naantali. Master did take care of the departure arrangements by himself. He estimated the northeast wind speed to be 12–17 m/s. North eastern wind presses the vessel against the pier from the port side. Master took first the bow out from the pier by bow thrusters while the stern was lying on the last fender towards shoreline. There after the stern was let go by increasing the main engine power forward, the rudders being to the starboard.

The Chief officer entered the bridge at 02.06 when the ship was already moving. Chief officer informed master that the stern was coming closer to the pier and master made correction alignment to the right by the rudder. This is how it was continued until the stern had passed the piers edge. After this the master changed his steering position in the middle of the bridge, the rudder being in the middle, the main propellers output 23 % forward and he didn’t activate the bow thrusters in the middle cockpit steering position.

As per VDR recording the “Predictor” did point the vessel to drift towards the buoy north of the Kapellskärs skäret. Neither the Master nor the Chief officer did monitor the “Predictor”s display. The passage was resumed with similar propeller blade-and rudder adjustments, bow thrusters being in zero position. About 02.09 Master turned the rudder about 20° to the left leaving the other means of steering as they were. The vessel was continuing the drift due to lack of steering efforts towards to the before mentioned buoy. When the stern was coming closer to the buoy 02.09.50 master increased the propellers output to 32 % and turned rudder 15° to the starboard in order to avoid the stern to collide on the buoy. The vessels sterns sb-side collision bar did collide on the buoy at 02.10.30 and there after the vessel run on the ground located on the north eastern side of the island. The vessel run over the ground and the vessels bottom was damaged in the entire length.

The vessel’s damages did neither cause any danger to sink nor stability problems. The vessel returned to Kapellskär at 03.36 where the passengers and cargo was discharged.

The reasons which lead to the accident were inadequate familiarization to the ships handling and its equipment, lack of use of the steering- and navigational equipment and lack of bridge resource management.

B1/2004M Report (pdf, 1.57 Mt)