Viking Sky survivors

[JDincalif]

35 minutes ago, aungrl said:

I remember this being your hypothesis early on when discussions about the situation first began.  This final report confirms your points of view, unsurprisingly, and I - along with many others, I'm sure - very much appreciate you coming back and giving even more details to help further explain and interpret the report.  

 

Heidi13 and chengkp75 are indisputably the MVPs - most valuable posters - of the Viking Sky Survivors. They've supported us with expertise and provided trustworthy information from practically the first moment of the crisis through all these years of speculation. And now that we have the final report, they're devoting a lot of time reviewing and analyzing the findings, then sharing their insights with us. We are exceptionally fortunate to have them among us.

[DGHOC]

Well said J and D, couldn't agree more! Many thanks to both of them.

[OnTheJourney]

On 3/19/2024 at 10:54 PM, Heidi13 said:

I have only read a few pages of the report

Andy, glad to see that you're going to be cruising again! This HAL itinerary by any chance? https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/find-a-cruise/s5n22b/o511 We only went with them once - for an Alaska trip, but they have a roundtrip Vancouver itinerary (Alaska) that I'd like to do sometime.

Edited March 21 by OnTheJourney

[Heidi13]

1 hour ago, OnTheJourney said:

Andy, glad to see that you're going to be cruising again! This HAL itinerary by any chance? https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/find-a-cruise/s5n22b/o511 We only went with them once - for an Alaska trip, but they have a roundtrip Vancouver itinerary (Alaska) that I'd like to do sometime.

 

I have booked the prior cruise on that ship, disembarking in Buenos Aires 28th Jan.

[JDincalif]

Request for our experts' consideration: On report page 101 under discussion of the decision to sail, there's a statement that, among the decision makers on board, "None have reported that not leaving port was an option (emphasis ours)." The report then provides some potential contributing factors, but is there any significance to that statement which suggests that remaining in Tromso wasn't even among the options considered?

 

 

 

[Heidi13]

9 minutes ago, JDincalif said:

Request for our experts' consideration: On report page 101 under discussion of the decision to sail, there's a statement that, among the decision makers on board, "None have reported that not leaving port was an option (emphasis ours)." The report then provides some potential contributing factors, but is there any significance to that statement which suggests that remaining in Tromso wasn't even among the options considered?

 

 

 

 

I'm just heading out for the day, so will endeavour to remember and contribute my thoughts this evening.

[chengkp75]

7 minutes ago, JDincalif said:

Request for our experts' consideration: On report page 101 under discussion of the decision to sail, there's a statement that, among the decision makers on board, "None have reported that not leaving port was an option (emphasis ours)." The report then provides some potential contributing factors, but is there any significance to that statement which suggests that remaining in Tromso wasn't even among the options considered?

 

 

 

What they are saying is that staying wasn't considered as an option, as there were no rules from Class or the company's SMS that said it should have been considered.  In other words, since nothing pointed to any reason to prevent sailing, not sailing wasn't considered.

 

I've started on the analysis section, and again just quick read through, and I again find that the root cause was the failure by both the shipyard and the Class society to ensure proper design of the sump tanks.  There were clear requirements from SOLAS, but no clear instruction on how to implement the requirements, so both are at fault, as is the IACS as the overseeing body for Class.  Class seems to have embraced the problem, and is working on remedies, though they still seem to want to place responsibility on the shipyard.  The shipyard seems to be disavowing any responsibility, shoving it onto Class and the engine builder.  Hopefully, Class, acting as the "third party" will step up and make the requirements needed, that the shipyard will then have to follow.

 

The Viking SMS does seem to have some problems, but as the ISM Code says that the SMS should outline virtually every aspect of how a ship is operated, no one can think of every single combination of circumstances.  This is why the SMS is designed to be amended and revised every time there is an incident, seeking to prevent the incident from happening again.  This is why the SMS philosophy is not to assign "blame" for an incident that happened, as in the absence of blame, investigators can more likely get honest responses from those involved.  The goal is not to blame anyone, but to find the true cause of the problem, and make new policies and procedures to prevent the same thing happening again.

 

The fact that the crews of more than one Viking ship voiced concerns about lube oil levels, both to Viking and to MAN, shows that they were concerned, long before the incident happened on the Sky, and were operating the best way they thought, given the circumstances of the systems involved.  It appears that corporate Viking (or Wilhelmsen as operators) did not fully support the ships' crews in dealing with a problem, as they should have under the SMS.  While another cause of the incident, I would say that this is fairly common in the maritime industry, as not everyone "buys into" the SMS philosophy completely, and sometimes new personnel take time to realise the benefits of SMS.

[chengkp75]

16 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

I'm just heading out for the day, so will endeavour to remember and contribute my thoughts this evening.

Ramrodding a kitchen renovation now, so getting reading done on this is pretty sporadic.

[JDincalif]

14 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

I'm just heading out for the day, so will endeavour to remember and contribute my thoughts this evening.

Thank you. After five years of waiting for the final report, we're certainly content to wait for a response at your convenience!

[JDincalif]

3 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Ramrodding a kitchen renovation now, so getting reading done on this is pretty sporadic.

Appreciate all your insights to date and happy to wait for any additional response when you have time. Thank you.

[OnTheJourney]

55 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

I have booked the prior cruise on that ship, disembarking in Buenos Aires 28th Jan

Looks like a great itinerary!

[OnTheJourney]

One thing that has always wondered me is - how much of a factor, relative to the sailing decisions made both before and after leaving Tromso, was needing to get to Tilbury by our scheduled disembarkation date? Ours was, if I'm correct, the final Northern Lights journey for the season, or was there a return trip to Bergen? Or another cruise for that matter out of Tilbury? Any sort of itinerary delay can quickly become a significant issue (as DW and I experienced on the Viking Mississippi cruise).

Edited March 21 by OnTheJourney

[chengkp75]

32 minutes ago, OnTheJourney said:

One thing that has always wondered me is - how much of a factor, relative to the sailing decisions made both before and after leaving Tromso, was needing to get to Tilbury by our scheduled disembarkation date?

This is mentioned by the NSIA as being, of course, one consideration in whether to sail or not, and is of course a valid consideration, but without a counterbalance of the SRtP non-conformity, it gained perhaps more importance than it should have.

[OnTheJourney]

6 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

This is mentioned by the NSIA as being, of course, one consideration in whether to sail or not,

Interesting...haven't gotten that far yet in the report!!  Thanks so much, as has already been mentioned by others, for taking the time to read and weigh in on all this. Us "survivors" greatly appreciate it!!!   😉

[chengkp75]

I have not worked with the Wartsila automation system that the Sky utilizes, but a note in the conclusion section makes me feel that is is not as robust or effective as some of the systems that I am familiar with.  They state that the system only updates a data point when it changes, not on a time basis.  Most systems I've used are multiplex data acquisition systems, meaning that every second the system sweeps through all the data points, for display to the humans.  The data points are preset, based on importance, to be read every second, two seconds, 5 seconds, or 30 seconds.  This is, in my opinion, a much better system, and one that may have alleviated some of the distrust of the oil level monitoring system that the crew had.

[DGHOC]

1 hour ago, OnTheJourney said:

One thing that has always wondered me is - how much of a factor, relative to the sailing decisions made both before and after leaving Tromso, was needing to get to Tilbury by our scheduled disembarkation date? Ours was, if I'm correct, the final Northern Lights journey for the season, or was there a return trip to Bergen? Or another cruise for that matter out of Tilbury? Any sort of itinerary delay can quickly become a significant issue (as DW and I experienced on the Viking Mississippi cruise).

There was a cruise following ours OTJ, (not a NL one) it was obviously cancelled and as I remember the guests received a full refund and were compensated with the same amount (free cruise).

 

There was a situation with another V cruise delayed by a storm off of Norway which resulted in a delayed arrival in the UK. There were a number of disgruntled passengers both on the delayed ship and awaiting in the UK who brought their grievances to CC. Can't remember the detail but I think that they felt they hadn't been adequately compensated. Viking were obviously keen to avoid a repeat of the Sky incident, rightly so!

[chengkp75]

I will note that without knowing the terms of the management contract between Viking and Wilhelmsen, that the failures of the SMS system fall more heavily on Wilhelmsen than on Viking, but it also means that Viking needs to be more "hands on" with managing the management company (though proper management of the ships is what they are paying Wilhelmsen for in the first place).

[DGHOC]

What a tangled mess chengkp75, how will they possibly ascertain responsibility? The lawyers will  surely be working on this for years to come.

[OnTheJourney]

16 minutes ago, DGHOC said:

There was a cruise following ours OTJ,

Thanks! I would have assumed there was a cruise immediately following.

 

17 minutes ago, DGHOC said:

Can't remember the detail but I think that they felt they hadn't been adequately compensated.

Well, we sure were. Viking went way above and beyond, I thought. Never expected a revised Chairman's cruise to show up following the cancellation of the first plan.

 

9 minutes ago, DGHOC said:

What a tangled mess

Well said! Extremely complex set of findings to sort through and unravel, to say the least.

[chengkp75]

2 minutes ago, DGHOC said:

What a tangled mess chengkp75, how will they possibly ascertain responsibility? The lawyers will  surely be working on this for years to come.

Again, the SMS model is not to ascertain responsibility, but to ensure that all parties make changes that keep the incident from happening again.  Even if one party, like Fincantieri, don't make what are considered to be "sufficient" changes, the system has checks and balances (mainly relying on the "third party" Class society) that will hopefully cover those shortcomings.  That is why flag states are required to approve an entity (like a Class society) to audit the SMS programs of all shipping companies that have ships under their flag.  The Class societies are also audited by other "third party" companies to ensure that the Class society meets ISO standards for management of their business (ensuring that adequate requirements are promulgated to ensure safe ships).

 

Nearly all parties have some responsibility for this incident, each one being one of the "holes" in the Swiss cheese, and whether one hole is "bigger" than the others, is relatively irrelevant, as all it requires is for all the holes to line up, regardless of how big the passage through the holes is.

[OnTheJourney]

48 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

the SMS model is not to ascertain responsibility, but to ensure that all parties make changes that keep the incident from happening again. 

Wouldn't it be nice if most things operated that way, as opposed to living in our highly litigious and condemnatory society where the emphasis is often on determining culpability (and subsequent rewards) rather than exploring all the facts solely to arrive at a workable, productive solution to avoid future situations - whatever they might be - for the benefit of everyone. This is not to imply that those who truly are deserving (of financial or whatever other legal reward) as a result of injury or hardship, etc. shouldn't get it, but some of the jury decisions handed down are insane. My Dad used to be fond of saying that many times people don't want to be held responsible for their own actions anymore, but rather it's always someone else's fault.

Edited March 21 by OnTheJourney

[SJD117]

1 hour ago, DGHOC said:

What a tangled mess chengkp75, how will they possibly ascertain responsibility? The lawyers will  surely be working on this for years to come.

Attorney here. It’s very possible that lawyers won’t be working on this for “years to come.” They need plaintiffs, after all, and many real or potential cases may already have settled out. And other passengers may just wish to put the Sky debacle behind them, five years after it occurred. (There’s also the issue of potential statutes of limitation, but that’s beyond the scope of this comment.)

 

As to the ascertainment of legal responsibility, courts do this all the time in multi-party litigation. It’s not a problem.

[DGHOC]

1 minute ago, SJD117 said:

Attorney here. It’s very possible that lawyers won’t be working on this for “years to come.” They need plaintiffs, after all, and many real or potential cases may already have settled out. And other passengers may just wish to put the Sky debacle behind them, five years after it occurred. (There’s also the issue of potential statutes of limitation, but that’s beyond the scope of this comment.)

 

As to the ascertainment of legal responsibility, courts do this all the time in multi-party litigation. It’s not a problem.

Oh no, I didn't mean from the passengers, I would imagine that most would have been more than satisfied by Viking's generosity. I'm talking about the costs expended by Viking as a result of this incident and the costs necessary to correct what needs correcting/changing with the ships and procedures etc. The Chief has explained that it's not a blame game but I would expect that somewhere, someone is going to have to put their hands up and accept some sort of proportional responsibility. I can't however, profess to understanding anything at all about all of this!!

 

I remember you introducing yourself to us as a lawyer way back then.

[OnTheJourney]

2 hours ago, SJD117 said:

Attorney here.

Oh my...open mouth and insert foot....sorry for going on a bit of a rant about litigation, etc. in today's society!!! Didn't mean to step on anyone's toes 🤭

[SJD117]

1 hour ago, OnTheJourney said:

Oh my...open mouth and insert foot....sorry for going on a bit of a rant about litigation, etc. in today's society!!! Didn't mean to step on anyone's toes 🤭

No worries — you didn’t step on my toes! And even if you had done so, those toes are pretty tough. I’ve developed a pretty thick skin after 42 years in the legal field.   😀