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Back to Captain Logs 2001

The ship was aground Sunday. I got into trouble maneuvering near the main dock at the Detroit Yacht Club as we were coming in from the overnight passage from Cleveland. The grounding was on soft sand and mud but was strong enough to require assistance getting off. This cost Pride, Inc. considerable money. On Monday, the United States Coast Guard needed to inspect the vessel for damage to reassure themselves that the ship was safe to continue its mission. This process included filing an incident report explaining the circumstances of the grounding. This report will be passed on to the USCG Investigations section to determine if a violation has occurred and, if so, what action ought to be taken. Meanwhile, the audience for the incident was a supportive one and the media coverage was accurate in that Pride II was aground in the Detroit River but had suffered no damage. In the end, the USCG has satisfied itself for the moment that there is no visible damage, so Pride II is permitted to proceed. Of course, if there are changes suggesting there is damage, the USCG will be notified and there will be a further inspection of the ship.

In my opinion, the circumstances of the grounding involved the contour of the river bottom rather than an error of operation. I have just completed a detailed lead line depth sounding survey of the area in question and found substantial encroachment of the shoal near the club dock into the channel that passes between the shoal and the club. My estimation is that Pride II stopped behaving in her usual way during a turn to reverse direction from heading down river to up river when she got into shallow water. This is typical whenever she is in shoal water. But the Detroit River chart does not indicate there is any shoaling of the water in the channel between the club piers and the shoal in the middle of the river. My soundings indicate that now half the channel is much shallower than indicated on the chart. While Pride II started responding slowly to the maneuver to turn around and I attempted two additional efforts to get her turned around, the river current was sweeping Pride II toward the main part of the shoal. In the end I decided to attempt an aggressive maneuver to get out of the area and with full power on the engines attempted to accelerate away. Instead Pride II ground her way to a stop in an area that the chart does not indicate as being shoal. This occurred at 1315 hours in the afternoon. Pride II finally got free with help at 1745 hours.

No matter the cause of a grounding, a lot of self searching goes with it. Mine includes a review of the circumstances leading up to the event as well as what happened in light of the event. It frustrates me that the assistance cost the company so much. I am angry that I did not possess the thought to double-check the soundings before getting into a high river current situation. In hindsight it is easy to understand that the area of the grounding is one used mainly for recreation rather than for high value commercial traffic. The underwater survey of the area of the grounding is not recent (in fact it was last done between 1903 and 1934) and, therefore, does not necessarily reflect what the bottom contour is today. The underwater surveys for the commercial areas are as recent as 1987-1997. For two decades now, there has been an effort to reduce the cost of the federal government. This includes reducing the expense of doing underwater surveys. To help hold government costs down, underwater surveys don't occur in areas that are not experiencing problems. The area of our grounding is not often transited by vessels with greater than 12 feet of draft. If it were, there would be more problems and there would likely be a warning on the chart of "reported shoaling." But since most of the traffic in the area is motor-yachts drawing less than 8 feet, there have been few problems. Well, it was a problem for me and now the Detroit Yacht Club has a copy of my own underwater survey. I hope it is useful. In the meantime, if we go back again, we will merely turn around early and back into the docking area instead of trying to turn around at the dock.

We had a nice sail from Cleveland after two daysails with customers of the Maryland Port Administration. Then back west we sailed from Cleveland to Detroit with the fortune of a favorable breeze – a fresh one, too, so we sailed with only the foresail, staysail, and square topsail. As we entered the Detroit River, we sailed past the summerhouse of the in-laws of Pride II's principal builder, Peter Boudreau. Peter came out in a small boat with his two children, his brother-in-law Andy who sailed back from Europe with us in 1991 and a nephew, to watch Pride II sail by. We called out to each other and arranged for me to visit them the next day. Too bad the grounding marred it. But we did get a chance to visit.

Our new cook arrived in Detroit! The crew is very happy. In fact they reacted more to having the cook arrive than they did to the work they had to do as a result of the grounding. Michael has been nervous but game to give the job all he has. Getting a finger injury has not set him back, even though it meant he had to go to the hospital and have his nail removed to get out the stuff that got under it.

Meanwhile our stay at the Detroit Yacht Club has been very beneficial for the ship and enjoyable for the crew. The crew worked on the ship all day long and after work they got to use the club facilities, like the pool, hot tub, and television room. The club has also been very complimentary of the crew. Several members were impressed at how well the crew worked during the grounding and how they responded to members when the ship was open for visitation right after the grounding. As a gesture of gratitude, the club hosted the crew to a wonderful supper. We all enjoyed it and thanked our hosts profusely.

We have had still more crew changes. First Mate Laura Lohse is gone. Our upwardly mobile David Briddle replaces her. He vacates Second Mate, which is filled now by newcomer, Ian Thomas. Astra Valters is gone as well and is replaced by Christine Healy. A full third of the ship's crew is now new. It will take some time for the new ones to get up to par. Well, they have three weeks before two more changes occur.

Cheers,

Captain Miles