Who wants to play maritime dodgems?

In the first judgment [1] of 2024 handed down by the Admiralty court, Mr Justice Baker considered the actions of two vessels that collided at anchor off Chattogram (Chittagong). Given the frequency of ships dragging their anchor around Chattogram, this is a surprisingly long judgment at 47 pages.

 

Those familiar with Chattogram and the anchorages situated around there will be well aware of the problem of ships dragging their anchor and the issues that arise.

 

Rather unusually for such a case, the parties could not agree liability which for reasons that will become apparent in this article, seems an unwise choice.

 

The facts are relatively straight forward. At about 01:10 hrs on 9 November 2021 the m.v Belpareil and the m.v. Kiran Australia collided. The two vessels were almost identical in size being geared Supramax bulk carriers.

 

The Belpareil was laden with cargo and was anchored about 0.5 nm south of the Kiran Australia with her port anchor down with 9 shackles. The Kiran Australia had her starboard anchor down with 8 shackles and was carrying out discharging operations into barges. 

 

At about 23:00hrs on 8 November the crew on the Belpareil noticed that she was dragging her anchor. What then followed can be briefly summarised as follows:

 

·      The Belpareil used her engine at various settings to try and arrest the dragging, but she could not achieve RPMs beyond 50 to 55.

·      After several unsuccessful attempts by Kiran Australia to contact Belpareil, at about 00:15hrs Belpareil called Kiran Australia and confirmed she was dragging her anchor and had issues with her engine.

·      At about the same time, Kiran Australia stopped cargo operations and cast off her barge.

·      At about 00:19hrs during a VHF conversation Belpareil advised Kiran Australia that her engine was out of order

·      At about 00:21hrs the Belpareil broadcast a sécurité message

·      At about 00:54hrs the Belpareil called the Kiran Australia and told her to pick up her anchor and at 00:56hrs she was only 100m ahead of the Kiran Australia and going astern “very quickly”.

·      At about 01:04hrs the Belpareil had almost passed the stern of the Kiran Australia

·      Between 01:07 and 01:10hrs the two vessels engaged in what the judge referred to as “slow motion maritime dodgems” as they tried to avoid each other which ultimately failed.

 

The judge was assisted by two Elder Brethren of Trinity House as nautical assessors and whilst the judge accepted some of their advice, he also rejected some of it.

 

The judge ultimately held that the majority of the blame lay with the Belpareil at 70% with the Kiran Australia 30% to blame.  

 

He came to this conclusion because prima facie, if your anchor drags you are negligent unless you can displace that presumption. The Belpareil failed to displace that presumption.

 

The Belpareil delayed in giving a warning to the Kiran Australia regarding its engine not operating properly and they also delayed in calling tugs.

 

The judge was also critical of the Belpareil for not dropping her starboard anchor.

 

The judge found that both ships were negligent to varying degrees during the last three minutes when they were playing “slow motion maritime dodgems”.

 

Whilst the judgment is a useful recap of the legal and practical principals for vessels that drag their anchors, what makes the judgment interesting is the heavy criticism heaped upon the masters of both vessels. As the judge found, each of the masters had made up a narrative “providing counsel with gifts for cross examination”.

 

The judge went further and called them dishonest, a charge the master of the Kiran Australia refused to accept but which the judge found was made out.

 

There was further criticism heaped upon the trial witness statements and in particular that of the Kiran Australia as being “largely useless” containing new fictions and was based on the reconstruction and not based on his recollection at the time of the collision.

 

The judgment provides a salutary reminder of the need for witness statements to be CPR PD57AC compliant. Gathering evidence and witness statements at the time of a collision or severe incident can protect a party’s interest at trial which may be years ahead, and also prevent the kind of criticism being levelled at you by the Admiralty Judge.

 

It would be interesting to see if there were any costs sanctions for the witness statements failing to comply with the practice direction.