Continuation from previous post

The damage to the forked lug (securing clip) of the offal chute lid, which is visible in the image below, indicates that the crew of the Gaul (prior to the loss of the vessel) had secured the inner covers in the closed position. The covers were subsequently damaged when the sea burst them open.

In the above detail, the normal outline of the forked securing clip was drawn in orange

This evidence clearly negates three of the principal conclusions of the RFI:

1. That proper use of the inner covers would have prevented water ingress
This is incorrect - the above photo indicates that the covers had been used ‘properly’ but, unfortunately, this could not prevent the water ingress.

2. That, at the time of the loss, the inner covers were not closed and secured
This is incorrect – the evidence indicates that not only had the covers been closed and secured at the time of the loss, but also that the forces of the sea subsequently opened them.

3. That, at the time of the loss, there was no physical reason to prevent the crew from closing and securing these covers
The photo shows clearly that the securing arrangements were physically damaged and as such could not be used to secure the covers. It is most likely that this damage occurred ‘at the time of the loss’

Besides, the inner covers were in no way strong enough to be watertight. If they had been, they would not have been damaged.

More to come...

Elastic conclusions and the re-writing of history

In an earlier POST we already mentioned one embellishment contained in a paper produced by the experts in the 2004 Gaul RFI.

In that same paper, drawn up as a summary of the results of the formal investigation, the experts also went a step beyond the official findings and stated with conviction:

“There was no logical reason why the duff and offal chute lids were secured in the open position, whilst dodging, other than crew error. It is also difficult to understand why the flap valves were jammed in the open position other than bad maintenance onboard or ashore.”

The authors were, of course, well aware of the fact that the offal chute lids had not been found secured in the open position. They were also aware that it was only around the duff chute lid that some kind of ‘ligature’ had been seen hanging and, therefore, one could not truthfully say that both the duff and the offal chute lids had been secured open by the crew of the Gaul.

The RFI final report, having been drawn up by better-versed legal minds, went only as far as advising that:

“In the case of the duff chute, the single lid was apparently secured in the open position by some form of ligature and in the case of the offal chute the split lid was found with the forward half open and the aft half closed, but not secured.”

The RFI experts must have also realised that any future interested parties would be more likely to read their free paper rather than the costly and voluminous RFI report, and that their words may therefore be taken as fact.

In the light our previous post and the above observations we would ask our readers the following question: What can one make of these exaggerations, which, it so happened, had the effect of adding undeserved weight to the Court’s ‘crew error’ verdict?

Wilful ignorance

When they’ve finished filling in their various questionnaires, the Fraud Squad detectives set about catching criminals.

But, how do they perform this task? Do they go out into the street, copping people at random? No, of course not! They employ logic.

The unfortunate thing, however, is that their logic can sometimes take the shape of the politicised Heads of the Met.

In our previous posts we reported on the progress made by the Fraud Squad in response to our fraud complaint. Today, we are able to provide you with an exciting update:

After 11 months of rumination, the Met detectives were finally able to shout Eureka, as they found an answer to our concerns, and a simple one at that.

In a letter signed by a Detective Chief Inspector of the Fraud Squad, we were informed that the design fault on the Gaul - which, we contended, could have competed as a more likely cause for the loss of the vessel than crew negligence, had evidence of this fault not been withheld – was, in fact, recognised by the 2004 RFI and duly mentioned in the final report, at paras 2.44 –2.49.

How extraordinary! The naval architect, who has been carping about the final report to the RFI and its findings for more than two years now, never realised that the Investigation Panel had in fact agreed with him.

How could he have missed the meaning of those six vital paragraphs, which the Met detectives’ perspicacity identified as proof that the RFI panel didn’t keep shtum about the design fault in question?

Well, the truth of the matter is that the above-mentioned paragraphs[1] refer, in fact, only to:

1. a calculation error in the design of the chutes, the unfortunate significance of which being, nevertheless, overlooked (see DESIGN ERROR 2 document);
2. a mention of the fact that the vessel owners had annotated the drawing of the chute with the statement “the design of the watertight hopper hatch cover was “too fiddly” " – statement endorsed by the final report despite being factually incorrect;
3. the unrealistic notion that the one inch square section of the steel hinge spindles would have become rounded with normal use (while, in the same paragraph, the experts advise that they had visited the Gaul’s 29 year old sister vessel on which, the same type of spindle had not, even by that time, become rounded);
4. a suggestion that the design of the hinges would have “inevitably resulted in corrosion within the brass gland” - in fact the ‘brass gland’ referred to therein was a sintered bronze, self lubricating, bearing, and
5. a statement that the flaps could not be maintained without destroying them, which, as we explained HERE as well as in this POST and on page 22 of the TECHNICAL REPORT, was pure misconception.

Nowhere in the report is it mentioned that the non-return flaps opened the wrong way round (a major DESIGN FAULT) and, therefore, would have failed to act as the principal strength barrier against seawater flooding, as they were supposed to. And that is the crux of the matter. Plain as daylight.

To claim otherwise is brazenly insincere, similar to saying that white is black and black is white.

When questioned about these inadvertences, the DCI professed ignorance of the details of the case, passing the buck to the lowest rank: i.e. a constable in his squad.

(To be continued)

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[1] A copy of paras 2.44 –2.49 is provided at THIS LINK

Hyperbolic representation

On 25 January 2006, the Gaul RFI experts panel presented a paper entitled ‘The Loss of the M.F.V Gaul’ (see http://www.bctq.com/downloads/Gaul.pdf) to the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. This paper - a summary on the work the experts had concluded during the 2004 RFI - flatly states:

“There was no logical reason why the duff and offal chute lids were secured in the open position, whilst dodging, other than crew error. It is also difficult to understand why the flap valves were jammed in the open position other than bad maintenance onboard or shore.”

Familiar perhaps with the old wisdom that a good slogan can stop fifty years of analysis, or maybe emboldened by the calm passage of time, the Gaul experts claimed in their paper more certainty for the results of the 2004 RFI than the course of the proceedings ever warranted, and confidently put forward a more unequivocal explanation for the open state of the chutes’ inner lids.

Thus, what justice Steel and his associates had delicately implied at the end of the RFI, fourteen months later, the experts laid down in more explicit language, adding extra detail, specificity and emphasis to what the legal staff had left unsaid.

Had our Gaul experts been more scrupulous in checking their notes, the RFI transcripts of evidence and the final report, they would have remembered that the duff and offal chutes’ lids had not actually been found secured in the open position. Though, of course, the implication that the lids had been found so allowed the crew error/negligence label to be much more easily attached.

The laws of Physics

The 2004 Gaul RFI concluded that:

- The design of the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul was satisfactory to prevent the ingress of seawater onto the factory deck. (RFI final report, page 285)

- At the time of the loss, there was no physical reason why the watertight covers could not have been closed and secured. (RFI final report, page 286)

Additionally, it was assumed that, apart from leaving open the closures of the duff and offal chutes, the crew on the Gaul had also left unsecured a number of other important weathertight hatches and doors – all during a major storm. (!!!)
(This ‘everything was left open’ assumption was possibly meant to reinforce the RFI panel’s theory of crew negligence: i.e. if the trawlermen had left so many things unsecured, leaving the chutes open would be less surprising – just part of the general pattern.)

But why would the 36 experienced crewmembers do such reckless things? Save for the unlikely possibility that they all ran amok that day, what explanation could there be for such weird behaviour?
Yet, the 2004 Investigation panel decided that the crew had ignored all those protections to the safety of their ship and of their own lives.
No scientific explanation was found, although simple scientific explanations do exist - if you are willing to look for them.

In support of these alternative explanations, we are able to present the evidence given by our expert witnesses: Sir Isaac Newton, Messrs Archimedes of Syracuse and Robert Boyle.
The physical laws established by these honourable gentlemen could be used to prove the existence of alternative loss scenarios. We have already done this for the closing arrangements on the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul, which, we demonstrated, could have easily been opened by the forces of the sea. Bearing in mind that these laws govern cause and effect, it can be similarly demonstrated that a number of other important hatches and doors on the Gaul could have been burst open by the maelstrom of forces unleashed on them as floodwater surged from compartment to compartment, while the vessel was sinking in heavy seas. (More about this will be said in a separate post)

However, once one accepts that other plausible explanations exist, the general crew-negligence scenario, that the 2004 RFI panel seem to have stapled themselves to, becomes increasingly doubtful. To say the least...

Meanings

Some of those who have read our previous POST may wonder whether the definitions used in the 2004 Gaul RFI were tailored to suit the conclusions of the investigation or whether they were just an unfortunate mistake that, it so happened, had a serious impact upon the outcome of the inquiry.

We cannot provide an answer in this respect, but we can supply some additional information:

- The definitions for ‘watertight’ and ‘weathertight’ are common knowledge amongst marine professionals, so it would be unreasonable to assume that the panel of experts in the Gaul RFI were not familiar with these classifications.

- Justice David Steel, the Admiralty judge, who conducted the formal investigation into the loss of MV Herald of Free Enterprise (1987), seemed, at the time, to be well aware of the correct meanings of the terms:

“[the term]…Watertight is applied to doors and bulkheads where there is the possibility of water accumulating at either side. Weathertight applies to doors or openings, which are only required to prevent the ingress of water from the side exposed to the weather.”[1]

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[1] David Steel Q.C., mv Herald of Free Enterprise, Report of Court No.8074

The purpose of re-writing definitions

In our first POST, dated 31 August 2006 and in the technical paper (pages 15, 26-30) published HERE, we showed how the internationally agreed definitions for ‘watertight’ and ‘weathertight’ (which lay down the required properties for certain ship’s fittings) had been altered in the final report of the 2004 Gaul RFI, by the Investigation panel, in a way that made them looser in requirements and application.

To recap, the RFI definition for ‘watertight’ did not contain the very specific and essential capability of “preventing the passage of water in any direction under a head of water for which the surrounding structure is designed” that the standard definition incorporated, while the definition for ‘weathertight’ replaced the statutory capability that “in any sea conditions water will not penetrate into the vessel” with the less stringent requirement of ”being sealed to exclude water in normal sea conditions”.

Now, you may wonder: why would the RFI panel do such a thing, of creatively re-writing these definitions, rather than simply reproducing the standard ones from the Load Line and other Conventions?

If one looks at this problem in the whole context of the investigation and its outcome, then it becomes apparent that, without these alterations, the findings and the loss scenario that were produced by the investigation panel, would not have held water.

It was only according to these modified definitions that the inner covers of the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul could be categorised as watertight (in reality, these covers were not even of weathertight standard[1]).

Once having wrongly ascribed ‘watertight’ properties to the inner covers, it was then easy to claim, as the 2004 RFI did, that, had these covers been secured in the closed position, the flooding and subsequent loss of the vessel could have been prevented. As the Gaul’s inner covers were found to be open during the underwater survey, the blame for the incident was then immediately placed on the crew, thus avoiding any need for a further proper examination of the faulty outer ‘non-return’ flaps. (See VIDEO clip for a brief demonstration of the design fault)

Hence, we can only infer that: had the RFI panel not assigned properties to the closing arrangements on the duff and offal chutes of the Gaul on the basis of false criteria, they would have had to arrive at the same conclusion as others have: i.e. with the outer non-return flaps properly designed, the vessel would not have sank, regardless of whether the inner covers were open or closed.

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[1] Only in combination with the outer flaps were the inner covers intended to form a weathertight barrier to the sea. The role of the outer flaps was to provide a strength barrier against the force of the waves, and that of the inner covers to simply prevent the leakage.

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Improbable impossibility

An extract from the Report of the Re-opened Formal Investigation into the loss of the FV Gaul:

"21.1 What was or were the probable cause or causes of the loss of the GAUL?

A sudden and rapid accumulation of water on the factory deck, (...)

21.2 What possible causes can be eliminated by the evidence which is now available?

All other causes including, seizure, scuttling, fire, collision, explosion, missile attack, torpedo attack, striking a mine, icing, cargo shift,structural failure, grounding, snagging a seabed cable or a submarine.

21.3 What other possible causes remain open?

None."

By definition, probable is something likely to happen but not certain. What is not absolutely certain leaves room for other possibilities. Therefore other possibilities (i.e."all other causes") cannot be eliminated.

***

"There is no use in trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things.""I dare say you haven't much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." (Excerpt from "Alice in Wonderland")

***

'No known mechanical reason'

"18.17... it is now necessary to focus on the important and central feature of the vessel in this case, the duff and offal chutes. In this connection, it is important to note that although both chutes were found on the wreck to be open both in way of the non-return flap and the internal top cover, there is no known mechanical reason why this was so." (Report of the Re-opened Formal Investigation into the Loss of the FV Gaul)

(!)

Initial comments

Critical comments on the findings of the Re-Opened Formal Investigation (RFI) into the loss of the trawler Gaul

Following a careful study of the report into the loss of the trawler Gaul published in December 2004, at the end of the RFI, (http://www.fv-gaul.org.uk/), a number of questions and objections as to its content and conclusions arise.

In essence, the inquiry concluded that human error on the part of the crew, shore maintenance staff and the vessel's owners was the cause of the vessel's loss.

In this post, it is suggested that what actually led to loss of the vessel was a design fault in the construction and arrangements of the duff and offal chute openings and their means of closure.

The RFI conclusions in brief

1. That the Gaul capsized and sank in severe weather following undetected seawater ingress into the factory space. The water entered this space through two hull side chute openings[1].
2. That each of these two hull side chute openings had two means of closure: an outer non-return flap valve and a hinged inner cover; and that both of these closures were open prior to, and during the loss of the vessel. 
3.  That, as a result of inadequate shore-side maintenance, both outer flap valves had become seized in the open position due to corrosion in their hinges, and that they had been in this condition since the time of the vessel’s departure from Hull, 16 days prior to the accident;
4. That the hinged inner covers had been left open and unsecured by the crew; and 
5. That, had the crew closed the inner covers, this would have been sufficient to prevent the loss of the vessel.
....................................................................................................
[1] These chutes facilitated the overboard discharge of duff and offal waste resulting from fish processing operations within the factory space.
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The design fault

The duff and offal chute openings in the hull of the vessel were provided with a two-barrier closure system: an outer non-return flap (the strength barrier) and an inner cover (the leakage barrier), and these were both required to be closed in order to maintain the hull’s full watertight integrity.

Unfortunately, it can be demonstrated that the outer non-return flap arrangement, which was present onboard the Gaul was such that, in certain circumstances, the sea could act directly on the exposed free edge of this outer flap and push it open. In such circumstancess, if the inner covers had also been open or had subsequently failed[2] , the seawater would have been able to enter the vessel unhindered. 

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[2] It should be mentioned here that the inner covers were neither designed nor intended to withstand, on their own, the forces of the sea

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For a pictorial explanation of the design defect on the Gaul, please follow this link:
http://webzoom.freewebs.com/inconvenientcitizen/Gaul%20design%20fault.pdf

This shows that a slightly different design arrangement of the outer non-return flaps would have prevented the rapid flooding of the Gaul, even with the inner covers left fully open.

Possible causes for the loss of the Gaul

The Re-opened Formal Investigation came to the conclusion that the outer non-return flaps in the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul had been seized in the open position since the time of the vessel’s departure from port - this conclusion having been drawn from the fact that the flaps were found to be in the open position during the 2002 underwater survey.

The fact that the inner covers were also found to be open during this survey was ascribed to the crew’s failure to close them.

In his closing remarks the judge stated firmly that "no other possible causes remained open".

The document published HERE shows that not only was this incorrect but that there are other more plausible explanations for the loss of the vessel:

Other aspects and questions

Linked to the above issues, there are also a number of elements within the formal report which appear incorrect: 1. When defining the scope of ship classification, the formal report failed to include the Classification Societies’ responsibility for watertight integrity. The definition within the report reads:

“Class/classification = covers the development and worldwide implementation of published rules and regulations which will provide for: 1. The structural strength and scantlings of all essential parts of the hull and its appendages; ......”

While the definition as per IACS – Quality management System requirements manual states in respect of “Classification service” point 1. that

“The structural strength (and where necessary the watertight integrity of) all essential parts of the exterior boundaries of the ship or offshore installation and its appendages.”

Why was the alteration of this international definition necessary in the formal report?

2. The definitions provided in the formal report for weathertight and watertight properties read as follows:

“Watertight – impervious to the passage of water, as applied to ship’s structure, closures and joints. A watertight opening is so constructed that when closed, it will prevent water under pressure from passing through, and normally incorporates a gasket.”


“Weathertight – capable of being sealed to exclude water in normal sea conditions. A weathertight opening is typically designed to keep out rain and spray only.”

Whereas watertight and weathertight are terms that have agreed International definitions such that items which are categorised and accepted as watertight or weathertight need to meet strict requirements for construction, strength, material thickness, gasketing, hinges and securing clips (these are generally set by National or International standard).

“Watertight means capable of preventing the passage of water through the structure in either direction with a proper margin of resistance under the pressure due to the maximum head of water, which it might have to sustain.”


“Weathertight means that in any sea conditions water will not penetrate into the ship.” (SOLAS 1974 as amended, 1966 Load Line Convention and Torremolinos Convention 1977)

Why were the definitions for watertight and weathertight used in the report incorrect?

Thus, a weathertight fitting should be designed to withstand, in any sea conditions, water pressure and prevent the passage of water from one side only. A watertight fitting, on the other hand, must, when closed, prevent the passage of water through an opening no matter which side is under pressure.

Since the adequacy and functioning of the ship’s duff and offal chute fittings was central to the investigation, has not their confusing definition been a serious failing?

Why have the inner covers of the Gaul’s duff and offal chutes been categorised throughout the report as being of a ‘watertight’ standard, whilst, in reality, the construction, strength and arrangement of these inner covers would not even meet the requirements that would be expected for ‘weathertight’ closures?

Watertight and weathertight fittings generally make use of rubber gaskets and clips (or bolts) to seal steel-to-steel joints and prevent the passage of water. Watertight fittings need many more bolts/clips than weathertight fittings. The principle shortfall in the strength of the chute’s inner covers is related to their direction of opening when considered in conjunction with external sea pressure loading (full sea loading on the covers would only be resisted by 3 butterfly nuts, instead of the overlapped gasketed steel plating arrangement that is normally associated with a weathertight joint). 3. It is also stated in the report that:

“it is not clear how the spindle could have been repaired or replaced should the need arise without burning off the balance weight from the connecting arms”

However, the construction drawings for the duff and offal chutes show quite clearly that the hinge, spindle, balance weight and connecting arms can be readily dismantled for maintenance, repairs or replacements. (?!)

4. Is it not the case that, if the inquiry had found that the Gaul had sunk due to a design defect, the victims’ families would have been entitled to compensation?

Extract from The Merchant Shipping (Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims) (Amendment) Order 1998:

" 1. The limits of liability for claims other than those mentioned in Article 7, arising on any distinct occasion, shall be calculated as follows: (a) in respect of claims for loss of life or personal injury, (i) 2 million Units of Account for a ship with a tonnage not exceeding 2,000 tons,”

This would amount today to approx. 3m USD per life lost (1 SDR = 1.48727 USD)

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For those who wish to read the full technical argument behind the above points, please visit the following site:

http://www.freewebs.com/inconvenientcitizen