Coast Goard hovercraft hits unlit anchored sailboat with no radar reflector.

[alctel]

Ganges is a shitshow even during the day - it has the highest number of derelict boats I've seen anywhere (even Brentwood Bay!) and tons of boats anchored very very close to each other. Definitely wouldn't feel great about heading in there at night

[Pelagic]

"The Siyay, measuring 28.5 metres long and 12 metres wide, is one of four hovercrafts operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. It is capable of travelling up to 50 knots –*"

No question that the Coast Guard will be found to have been operating at an unsafe speed for those conditions.

If it was dark and raining and your radar is not effective, where was the lookout up forward and their searchlight looking ahead

That's what I would have done towing in a barge into that Harbour in those conditions

8 knots blind inside that crowded harbor right after twilight especially on a hovercraft is just dumb.

Forget that the sailboats light was not working, it could easily have been two kids in a canoe!

[Lodesman]

Now that the topic is mostly beat to death, might be a good time for pedantry. "Medivac" sounds like the machine a nurse uses when the surgeon asks for 'suction.' "Medevac" is a portmanteau for "medical evacuation."
Okay, I feel better now.

[bcboomer]

Derelict wooden hull, no mast, no rigging.
Emergency medical transportation.
Helicopters not available due to flooding in the Fraser Valley.
I think that the captain was under a lot of pressure in a difficult situation.

Plus the design flaws:
From 1999 incident investigation……. Ergonomics of the AP1-88/400
During the design stage of the Sipu Muin and Siyay, personnel of the CCG Ship Safety Branch (now TCMS) and SAR hovercraft pilots monitored the work, while GKN Westland Aerospace staff acted as project advisors. There were no CCG ergonomic or human factor advisors or programs in place during the acquisition, design, and testing stages.
During the investigation, a number of ergonomic design problems were identified, particularly for SAR night-time operation, including:
obstructed field of view from the control cabin, caused by the bow thruster vents;
side windows were not inclined and therefore reflections were problematic at night;
searchlights were designed for two-handed operation by someone other than the pilot (one hand is required to stabilize the unsecured control unit, while the other hand is needed to operate the joystick);
some navigation equipment did not allow for individual control of illumination and lighting;
night-time operation required relocation of navigator from fore to aft of the bridge, because the light from the radar reflected on the control cabin windows affecting the ability to see out of the windows and the crew's night vision;
light from search beams reflected off the water spray from the bow of the craft,Footnote 2 thereby obscuring forward visibility from the bridge at night.

Apparently this craft can have a lookout or a radar operator, but not both at the same time!

Maybe the blame should really go to whoever approved the design.

[TrentePieds]

Thanks for post #109, Boomer :-)!

For those among us who are interested, here is a link to the report to which you refer:

https://tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor.../m99w0116.html

I note particularly the following referring to the bow-thrusters: "Operationally these blind sectors are overcome by the craft captain and port seat occupant exchanging information as targets move from one sector to the other."

While it may seem paradoxical, I would think that this passing of important safety information from "pilot" to "co-pilot" (and vice versa) is perfectly feasible while blasting "up the strait" at 50 knots, but is would constitute a serious hazard while operating at 8 knots (or thereabouts) in a debris field such as Ganges Harbour. As the report of the 1999 incident - a year after delivery of the craft – suggests, at low speeds the machine is basically uncontrollable. We all know - maybe the helicopter designers at GKN do not - that an object in motion will proceed in a straight line unless acted on by an external force. When the object is basically a slab floating on the water with no lateral surface below it, that obviously destroys maneuverability :-)!

It may surprise and amuse some of our American friends to know that the Canadian Coastguard is NOT a part of the Royal Canadian Navy, but a branch of the Federal Department of Oceans and Fisheries. Until immediately prior to the procurement of the hovercraft in 1996 the CCG reported to the Department of Transport.

In the years from procurement to delivery of the hovercraft, the Ministers who would have had responsibility therefor, while their respective Secretaries of State, i.e. the senior permanent civil servants in their Departments, did the real work, were the following:

Minister of F&O Fred Mifflin/Herb Dhaliwal

Minster of Industry, Science and Technology: John Manly/John Manly

Minister of National Defence: David Collinette/Douglas Young

Minister of Transport: David Anderson/David Collinette

Mifflin was a Newfoundlander with 32 years service in the RCN, his last seagoing duty being Commanding Officer of HMCS Skeena. He was appointed Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in 1996, but covered himself with such glory that in 1997 – less than a year later – he was demoted to Minister of Veterans' Affairs. By 1999 he'd had a belly full of Ottawa and went back to the RCN driving sundry desks until retirement.

Dhaliwal: Came to my beloved adoptive city, Vancouver, as a child in 1958. He was elected there in 1993 because we needed to demonstrate “colour blindness” in the political sphere. He served on the back benches until, in 1997, he became Minister of Revenue and in 1999 Minister of Oceans and Fisheries. He is a man whose background is essentially that of a farmer with a particular interest in the legalization of cannabis. In 2002 internecine warfare in his Riding Association destroyed him as a politician. He has made up for it by becoming a knob in the cannabis industry :-)!

Manly: A native of Ottawa, a lawyer who never had his nose outta the books. The only kinda ship he was ever acquainted with was scholarship, at which he was, actually, quite good.

Collinette: A Torontonian who was Minister of Defence during the despicable “Somalia Affair” and had to pull in his horns and serve in sundry other capacities including the innocuous Minister of Veterans' Affairs until in 1996, he was found to have transgressed against Parliamentary Ethics and therefore, under pressure, resigned from Cabinet. Doing so also removed him from the enquiry into the Somalia Affair. In 1997 he was readmitted to Cabinet as Minister of Transport and, there, oversaw a number of policy decisions injurious to many aspects of the Canadian transport industry.

Young: A noxious man, although a New Brunswicker, who was famed for using language in the House (of Parliament) unbecoming a Canadian. He was the man who suspended the “Somalia Enquiry” for which his buddy Collinette must be eternally grateful. He is to this very day, well into his senescence, a “lobbyist” (influence peddler) in Ottawa.

Anderson: A native of Victoria, our provincial capital. Anderson was quite superior to the people listed above. After a long career in the Foreign Service he was elected in 1993, and after serving in other portfolios became Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in 1997. In that capacity he was instrumental in creating the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and the US. This treaty stopped the competing Canadian and US salmon fishing fleets from destroying, further than had already been done, the salmon stocks and thereby staunched the consequent general environmental destruction to which both BC and the State of Washington has been subject.

So there you have it. That the CCG is as effective as it is has to be credited to such men as the skipper of Siyay (which means “friend” in several of our coastal indigenous languages) who do a wonderful job DESPITE the incompetence and machinations of DOF, and before that of DT. Such departmental incompetence and machinations have the bane of the CCG for as long as I've called Vancouver “home”.

Cheers

TrentePieds

[deblen]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Thanks for post #109, Boomer :-)!

For those among us who are interested, here is a link to the report to which you refer:

https://tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor.../m99w0116.html

I note particularly the following referring to the bow-thrusters: "Operationally these blind sectors are overcome by the craft captain and port seat occupant exchanging information as targets move from one sector to the other."

While it may seem paradoxical, I would think that this passing of important safety information from "pilot" to "co-pilot" (and vice versa) is perfectly feasible while blasting "up the strait" at 50 knots, but is would constitute a serious hazard while operating at 8 knots (or thereabouts) in a debris field such as Ganges Harbour. As the report of the 1999 incident - a year after delivery of the craft – suggests, at low speeds the machine is basically uncontrollable. We all know - maybe the helicopter designers at GKN do not - that an object in motion will proceed in a straight line unless acted on by an external force. When the object is basically a slab floating on the water with no lateral surface below it, that obviously destroys maneuverability :-)!

It may surprise and amuse some of our American friends to know that the Canadian Coastguard is NOT a part of the Royal Canadian Navy, but a branch of the Federal Department of Oceans and Fisheries. Until immediately prior to the procurement of the hovercraft in 1996 the CCG reported to the Department of Transport.

In the years from procurement to delivery of the hovercraft, the Ministers who would have had responsibility therefor, while their respective Secretaries of State, i.e. the senior permanent civil servants in their Departments, did the real work, were the following:

Minister of F&O Fred Mifflin/Herb Dhaliwal

Minster of Industry, Science and Technology: John Manly/John Manly

Minister of National Defence: David Collinette/Douglas Young

Minister of Transport: David Anderson/David Collinette

Mifflin was a Newfoundlander with 32 years service in the RCN, his last seagoing duty being Commanding Officer of HMCS Skeena. He was appointed Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in 1996, but covered himself with such glory that in 1997 – less than a year later – he was demoted to Minister of Veterans' Affairs. By 1999 he'd had a belly full of Ottawa and went back to the RCN driving sundry desks until retirement.

Dhaliwal: Came to my beloved adoptive city, Vancouver, as a child in 1958. He was elected there in 1993 because we needed to demonstrate “colour blindness” in the political sphere. He served on the back benches until, in 1997, he became Minister of Revenue and in 1999 Minister of Oceans and Fisheries. He is a man whose background is essentially that of a farmer with a particular interest in the legalization of cannabis. In 2002 internecine warfare in his Riding Association destroyed him as a politician. He has made up for it by becoming a knob in the cannabis industry :-)!

Manly: A native of Ottawa, a lawyer who never had his nose outta the books. The only kinda ship he was ever acquainted with was scholarship, at which he was, actually, quite good.

Collinette: A Torontonian who was Minister of Defence during the despicable “Somalia Affair” and had to pull in his horns and serve in sundry other capacities including the innocuous Minister of Veterans' Affairs until in 1996, he was found to have transgressed against Parliamentary Ethics and therefore, under pressure, resigned from Cabinet. Doing so also removed him from the enquiry into the Somalia Affair. In 1997 he was readmitted to Cabinet as Minister of Transport and, there, oversaw a number of policy decisions injurious to many aspects of the Canadian transport industry.

Young: A noxious man, although a New Brunswicker, who was famed for using language in the House (of Parliament) unbecoming a Canadian. He was the man who suspended the “Somalia Enquiry” for which his buddy Collinette must be eternally grateful. He is to this very day, well into his senescence, a “lobbyist” (influence peddler) in Ottawa.

Anderson: A native of Victoria, our provincial capital. Anderson was quite superior to the people listed above. After a long career in the Foreign Service he was elected in 1993, and after serving in other portfolios became Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in 1997. In that capacity he was instrumental in creating the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and the US. This treaty stopped the competing Canadian and US salmon fishing fleets from destroying, further than had already been done, the salmon stocks and thereby staunched the consequent general environmental destruction to which both BC and the State of Washington has been subject.

So there you have it. That the CCG is as effective as it is has to be credited to such men as the skipper of Siyay (which means “friend” in several of our coastal indigenous languages) who do a wonderful job DESPITE the incompetence and machinations of DOF, and before that of DT. Such departmental incompetence and machinations have the bane of the CCG for as long as I've called Vancouver “home”.

Cheers

TrentePieds

Aha!
As suggested in my post #44.
Thanks for this info.


By the way-I have the utmost respect for the men and women that perform all emergency duties for Canadians. Most of the time they perform miracles with less than optimal equipment & under constant, incompetent political interference.


Cheers/Len

[Mistress Sirena]

Looks more like a snow blower 😂

[TrentePieds]

Yes Len, I saw your post at the time, of course :-)

I think we would agree that an NCO of a quasi-military organization such as CCG will not really do himself any favours by refusing an order.

Siyay's skipper runs that remarkable vessel quite frequently, as do others among the crew of CCG Sea Island Hovercraft Base, so he is not unaware of her weaknesses and deficiencies.

Given all the other calls made on CCG and CAF matériel that particular evening, as well as the prevailing weather conditions, I'm fairly sure that, while he may have been apprehensive when told off to do this mission, Siyay's skipper (who would have been fully aware of the disposition of matériel at the time), would not have had the slightest inclination to refuse the mission, even if he had been able to do so under his "terms of employment".

I might point out while we are at it, that the unfortunate denizens of Sumas Prairie are giving kudos right, left and centre to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are there at the moment reinforcing the dikes and clearing debris. It is a remarkable effort of "people helping people", uniform or no uniform, and it is IMO precisely the sort of tasks - the ONLY sort of tasks - for which we should maintain an army.

TrentePieds

[Nord Sal]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

Now that the topic is mostly beat to death, might be a good time for pedantry. "Medivac" sounds like the machine a nurse uses when the surgeon asks for 'suction.' "Medevac" is a portmanteau for "medical evacuation."
Okay, I feel better now.

Thanks for that. I not only got educated in the proper spelling of medevac, but learned a new word in portmanteau.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

Now that the topic is mostly beat to death, might be a good time for pedantry. "Medivac" sounds like the machine a nurse uses when the surgeon asks for 'suction.' "Medevac" is a portmanteau for "medical evacuation."
Okay, I feel better now.

Ok I can out-pedant that...

medivac noun


med·​i·​vac
less common spelling of MEDEVAC

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medivac

Ah, the English language, got to be one of the most corrupt there is...

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Nord Sal

Thanks for that. I not only got educated in the proper spelling of medevac, but learned a new word in portmanteau.

Actually, if you look it up in most dictionaries you will see that both are acceptable, but medevac is more common.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Ok I can out-pedant that...



https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medivac

Ah, the English language, got to be one of the most corrupt there is...

If you insist on spelling evacuation as ivacuation, then it's a perfectly fine spelling. Do you similarly corrupt casevac?

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

If you insist on spelling evacuation as ivacuation, then it's a perfectly fine spelling. Do you similarly corrupt casevac?

Hey this is the English language we are talking about...since when does it have to make sense

But now I know a new word too. "Casivac!" Lol.

[SailingInfidels]

The word from the harbour is that the vessel did in fact have a light on. If so, I will say this. If you slide off the highway while driving at 20 km/h in a snow storm, the police will say you were driving too fast for the conditions. That should be case closed.

[Martkimwat]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

That's pretty clear! And yet, I find it hard to believe that anyone was maintaining a radar watch, for at short range (say <200 m) almost any radar will pick up a 26 foot frp hulled yacht with an alloy mast and s/s rigging, and at the reported speed of 8 kts, that is time enough to maneuver.

But with LED lamps and auto switching and cheap solar there is simply no excuse for not lighting ALL anchored vessels.

Hope they were successful in their medevac...

Jim

Since the report mentioned them hitting the bowsprit of the vessel, it's quite likely it was a wooden boat with wooden spars, possibly not even an engine, so a very very low radar signature. Most certainly should have had a radar reflector. It could possibly have been relying on an oil lamp for an anchor light, which may have gone out.