Investigations lead to lessons learned

Captains,

The Coast Guard Office of Investigations and Analysis released "Lessons Learned 01-10" on Feb 18, 2010. The subject is "towing vessel stability" - with reference to the Tug Valor sinking in 2006. The key point is that senior crewmembers must read the stability instructions. Lesson Learned 01-10 says:

There are standard phrases

that are on every stability letter. The ones that applied to this casualty follow:

1) TANKS: No more than one centerline tank or P/S tank pair of potable water, lube oil, dirty oil

and ballast water and two P/S pair of fuel oil tanks may be partially filled at one time.

2) TANKS: Any cross-connections between port and starboard tank pairs shall be kept closed

at all times when underway.

3) LIST: You should make every effort to determine the cause of any list of the vessel before

taking corrective action.

In this instance [Tug Valor] the master allowed other deck officers and engineers to initiate ballast operations to

correct minor lists. He never directed anyone to determine the cause of the lists. The engineers

routinely left fuel tanks cross-connected on the P/S tank pairs that were feeding the day tank per

standard company/industry-wide practice. In this specific incident an additional set of P/S fuel oil tank

pairs were also cross-connected.

Lesson Learned 01-10 asks every tug mariner to beware of partially filled tanks, open cross connections, and unexplained list.

RDML W