Clark March 14th, 2007
If you have arrived at this website, it is either because you are one of my friends and family who have been following my trip around the world, or because you have recently read about me in a magazine and know me as that guy who got run over by a container ship.
Yes, it is true. A container ship did run over me and my little sailboat, but we both survived. Myself and my two crewmembers miraculously came out without a scratch. Condesa took about six months and $40,000 to be herself again.
I will spare the details, since they were printed in magazines and it is part of my job as a writer to sell magazines, but I can pick up where the magazine articles left off.
I bear no grudge against the ship. They just didn’t see us in the first place and didn’t stop because they didn’t know they’d hit us. It probably didn’t even make them spill their coffee, like running over an ant with your car. Since we all make mistakes, and it’s about how we deal with our mistakes that matters, I give the shipping company full points for dealing with me in a gentlemanly manner and paying for all the repairs.
This happy outcome can be attributed to several factors, which if not present would have made for a different result:
- None of us was killed or injured
- Condesa stayed afloat (see number 1)
- The ship was registered in a developed nation. Many ships are registered under flags of convenience, like Liberia or Panama, and their owners would have just laughed it off.
- I had some very good advice from friends and family about how to deal with the shipping company in a forthright and gentlemanly manner, which was reciprocated.
How this kind of thing can be avoided in the future is a big ball of wax.
I don’t believe we could have avoided being hit, unless we get into zigging when we should have zagged and other random odds ways of not being at that exact spot on earth at the wrong time. The crux of the issue, as far as Condesa is concerned, is the VHF radio. We should have been in contact early and making our presence known, but again, the hundreds of Brazilian fishermen who were making a mockery of international radio protocols and rendering the emergency channel useless with their mindless babbling, are to blame. It was the World Cup after all, and you know Brazilians and their soccer.
From the ship’s side, it is a discussion that could go on for days. These kinds of accidents happen frequently. There were two fishermen killed in the same kind of incident, by a ship coming from the same port, just three weeks before my accident. Something should be done!
These incidents and these shipping companies aren’t exactly in the public eye. They are the Masters of the Universe who move the world’s trade goods in a massive, endless march across the world’s oceans. Look around you. Chances are every manmade object you can lay your eyes on was transported in a container at some point, or at least on a ship. These companies have names you have never heard of, and many have been in business for hundreds of years. Their accidents don’t happen in a Southern California shopping mall, where lawyers are scrambling to take the case, those at fault want to hush it up, and those injured are sure to collect. They happen in the world’s oceans, often in international waters, and it is hard enough to even find out who owns these ships and the jurisdiction of the incident, not to mention the hundreds of thousands to be lost on legal fees, all for a case that may take years to be heard in maritime court.
There are no statistics, but I would guess that traditional fishermen around the world, often in unlit small craft, meet their ends frequently in this manner.
Technology can solve the problem, for those who can afford it. AIS (Automatic Identification System) should be affordable for small craft in the next few years. With this, you will show up with name and ID number on ship’s screens, just like airliners show up on an air traffic controller’s screen. But the oceans still belong to everyone, and just because you don’t have AIS, or a radio for that matter, doesn’t mean you deserve to get run down.
These ships move at over twenty knots and cut a wide swath. There are humans on watch, and they keep watch like I keep watch. That is to say, they look around every few moments, take a look at the radar, then go back to reading a book, filling out paperwork, or making a cup of coffee. Most of the time it’s just a whole lot of ocean out there. The difference is that I am moving at six knots in a craft that couldn’t kill anyone unless it was dropped on their head.
The moment before impact still give me night sweats.
