Evasive action

It has been more than five years now since a passenger ship, the M/V St. Thomas Aquinas, and a cargo ship, the M/V Sulpicio Express Siete, accidentally collided in the seawaters off Talisay City, Cebu. It happened on the evening of August 16, 2013. More than 100 persons in the passenger vessel died while not a single person lost his life on the cargo ship.

The sea mishap became the motivating force for the then Aquino Administration to establish a Ship Traffic Management System purposely to monitor the movements of all incoming and outgoing vessels that navigate within the north and south channels of the Port of Cebu. And so last February this year, a Vessel Traffic Management System came into existence.

As a standard protocol, all vessels entering the port are required to report to the VTMS through VHF Radio, stating therein the time of arrival at the designated point of call for ship monitoring. In the same way, all departing vessels inside the port are likewise required to report to the VTMS via VHF Radio for the same purpose.

But on October 18, 2018 at 8:45 p.m. a sea accident happened in the same location where the two vessels accidentally collided as mentioned earlier. This time it was between a fast ferry FastCat M11 and a container ship Ocean United. Fortunately, no deaths were reported in both vessels except for some injuries from and slight damage to the fastcraft.

International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972 specifically Rule 14 (Head-on situation) has this to say: “ (a) When two power-driven vessels are meeting on reciprocal or nearly reciprocal courses so as to involve risk of collision each shall alter her course to starboard so that each shall pass on the port side of the other…” This is applicable only for vessels navigating in an open sea where there is sufficient sea room for vessels to maneuver to avoid collision. For the sake of non-mariner readers starboard means “right” and port means “left.”

In inland waters, the rule is practically the same. Only that when navigating in a limited sea room, be it in a channel or fairway of a particular port, vessels need to report to the established VTMS as required by regulations and to navigate with caution using the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) as per advice. In the TSS, appropriate lanes are designated for inbound and outbound vessels. This is to ensure safe navigation for all vessels navigating within a TSS.

In the ship collision that happened recently, the VTMS Personnel on Watch may actually be in close monitoring of both vessels, notifying them of the risk of collision through VHF Radio. In response, both vessels should have seriously considered the notification that they received and executed as early as possible the right evasive action to avoid collision.

Joselito S. Berdin

Lapu-Lapu City