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Navy ship in diver drama
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| MAJESTIC VISITOR: HMS Enterprise is in port for a refit |
An investigation is being launched by the Maritime Coastguard Agency as to how divers operating in Falmouth Bay were in danger of being "run-over" by a Royal Navy vessel making her way into the port.
The incident occurred on Friday evening at about 6.30pm and the vessel, HMS Enterprise, a hydrographic survey ship is understood to have altered course at the last minute, narrowly missing the dive vessel and two divers in the water.
The dive boat had floats in the water warning that divers were operating in the area. There were also a number of other boats, inflatables and vessels in the approach to Falmouth, described by some as being "busy on Friday night." There were also allegations that those on the naval vessel could not be contacted by VHF from the dive vessel or from the coastguard at Pendennis Point.
Full details of the near miss remained unclear yesterday after a spokesman for the Royal Navy fleet at Portsmouth confirmed the incident had occurred but could not give many details pending the MCA investigation.
"We were aware of the incident when HMS Enterprise arrived at Falmouth," said David Healy. He said that at no time was there any danger to divers or to a dive boat.
Those on the bridge of the Royal Navy vessel identified there were divers in the water and changed course. As far as the ship was concerned it was the dive boat which should not have been there.
"We are aware the MCA is looking into this incident and it would not be appropriate to comment further," said Mr Healy.
He denied any suggestion that the Royal Navy vessel did not have a working VHF radio on board
A spokeswoman at Falmouth Coastguards also confirmed the incident had been logged but as it had involved a Royal Navy hydrographic survey vessel, she could not make any further comment.
A number of dive boats operate out of Falmouth, particularly at this time of the year and in good conditions.
HMS Enterprise, is an Echo' class survey vessel launched in Devon in 2002 and is currently commanded by Cdr. Adam James. She is a west country ship being built at the Appledore Shipyard in North Devon.
HMS Enterprise represents a major improvement to the Royal Navy's surveying and general environmental data gathering ability. She is able to collect information on all aspects of the environment from the seabed to the upper atmosphere, process and send this information to warfare commanders in real time.
The vessel is currently in Falmouth for a refit.
9:50am Wednesday 21st May 2008
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CommentPosted by: CRH, Cornwall on 8:21pm Wed 21 May 08
Here are some first hand accounts
http://www.yorkshire
-divers.com/forums/s
peakers-corner/71645
-would-classed-frien
dly-fire.html
Here are some first hand accounts
http://www.yorkshire
-divers.com/forums/s
peakers-corner/71645
-would-classed-frien
dly-fire.html
Posted by: Mark Milburn on 8:41pm Wed 21 May 08
I was one of the divers in the water, I could hear a large vessel and a small vessel travelling over my head. I decided to stay down longer, the noise was so loud it was obvious it was above my head. Any vessels should be at least 100m from a boat flying the 'A' (Divers Down) flag, most divers only deploy buoys when they ascend, some may deploy them at a depth of 5m. HMS Enterprise was drawing 5.4m that evening and would have at least seriously injured anyone at that depth.
I was one of the divers in the water, I could hear a large vessel and a small vessel travelling over my head. I decided to stay down longer, the noise was so loud it was obvious it was above my head. Any vessels should be at least 100m from a boat flying the 'A' (Divers Down) flag, most divers only deploy buoys when they ascend, some may deploy them at a depth of 5m. HMS Enterprise was drawing 5.4m that evening and would have at least seriously injured anyone at that depth.
Posted by: Jason Roseveare, Cornwall on 11:39pm Wed 21 May 08
Did the skipper of the diving boat contact Falmouth pilots on VHF 09 to find out what movements they had prior to dropping divers right in the main shipping channel into Falmouth? Or had this slipped his mind?
Did the skipper of the diving boat contact Falmouth pilots on VHF 09 to find out what movements they had prior to dropping divers right in the main shipping channel into Falmouth? Or had this slipped his mind?
Posted by: GSK, various on 10:03am Thu 22 May 08
perhaps the Royal Naval refit could include new VHF radios, and maybe they could send a couple of crew on the radio course
perhaps the Royal Naval refit could include new VHF radios, and maybe they could send a couple of crew on the radio course
Posted by: Neil, Falmouth on 11:14am Thu 22 May 08
RN trying to back peddle again - They deny saying the VHF was not working - yet that is what was said infront of 11 people! If it WAS working, then why did they not respond to. 1 CJ, 2.MCA? Funnily enough another vessel heard them speaking to a Fuel Barge on another channel. No doubt MCA will have all this recorded anyway.
Oh, and Roseveare - stop trying to grind axes with people again - you are making yourself look like an idiot.
RN trying to back peddle again - They deny saying the VHF was not working - yet that is what was said infront of 11 people! If it WAS working, then why did they not respond to. 1 CJ, 2.MCA? Funnily enough another vessel heard them speaking to a Fuel Barge on another channel. No doubt MCA will have all this recorded anyway.
Oh, and Roseveare - stop trying to grind axes with people again - you are making yourself look like an idiot.
Posted by: JS on 1:40pm Thu 22 May 08
[quote][bold]Neil[/bold] wrote:
RN trying to back peddle again - They deny saying the VHF was not working - yet that is what was said infront of 11 people! If it WAS working, then why did they not respond to. 1 CJ, 2.MCA? Funnily enough another vessel heard them speaking to a Fuel Barge on another channel. No doubt MCA will have all this recorded anyway. Oh, and Roseveare - stop trying to grind axes with people again - you are making yourself look like an idiot.[/quote] Whatever the reason there has clearly been an unfortunate incident which is quite rightly being investigated ...... we should remember though that the Royal Navy amongst other services are also responsible for saving a lot of lives at sea every year & often putting their own lives at risk to do so, personally being a diver that may need their help one day I'm going to refrain from being critical about their professionalism!
Neil wrote:
RN trying to back peddle again - They deny saying the VHF was not working - yet that is what was said infront of 11 people! If it WAS working, then why did they not respond to. 1 CJ, 2.MCA? Funnily enough another vessel heard them speaking to a Fuel Barge on another channel. No doubt MCA will have all this recorded anyway. Oh, and Roseveare - stop trying to grind axes with people again - you are making yourself look like an idiot.
Whatever the reason there has clearly been an unfortunate incident which is quite rightly being investigated ...... we should remember though that the Royal Navy amongst other services are also responsible for saving a lot of lives at sea every year & often putting their own lives at risk to do so, personally being a diver that may need their help one day I'm going to refrain from being critical about their professionalism!
Posted by: Neil, Falmouth on 4:03pm Thu 22 May 08
[quote][bold]JS[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]Neil[/bold] wrote: RN trying to back peddle again - They deny saying the VHF was not working - yet that is what was said infront of 11 people! If it WAS working, then why did they not respond to. 1 CJ, 2.MCA? Funnily enough another vessel heard them speaking to a Fuel Barge on another channel. No doubt MCA will have all this recorded anyway. Oh, and Roseveare - stop trying to grind axes with people again - you are making yourself look like an idiot.[/quote] Whatever the reason there has clearly been an unfortunate incident which is quite rightly being investigated ...... we should remember though that the Royal Navy amongst other services are also responsible for saving a lot of lives at sea every year & often putting their own lives at risk to do so, personally being a diver that may need their help one day I\'m going to refrain from being critical about their professionalism![/quote] Js - I doubt you would be saying that if you were there at the time - like I was.
Personally, being a diver myself, I would hope that they had working VHF's.
JS wrote:
Neil wrote: RN trying to back peddle again - They deny saying the VHF was not working - yet that is what was said infront of 11 people! If it WAS working, then why did they not respond to. 1 CJ, 2.MCA? Funnily enough another vessel heard them speaking to a Fuel Barge on another channel. No doubt MCA will have all this recorded anyway. Oh, and Roseveare - stop trying to grind axes with people again - you are making yourself look like an idiot.
Whatever the reason there has clearly been an unfortunate incident which is quite rightly being investigated ...... we should remember though that the Royal Navy amongst other services are also responsible for saving a lot of lives at sea every year & often putting their own lives at risk to do so, personally being a diver that may need their help one day I\'m going to refrain from being critical about their professionalism!
Js - I doubt you would be saying that if you were there at the time - like I was.
Personally, being a diver myself, I would hope that they had working VHF's.
Posted by: billposter, Falmouth on 5:41pm Fri 23 May 08
[quote][bold]Mark Milburn[/bold] wrote:
I was one of the divers in the water, I could hear a large vessel and a small vessel travelling over my head. I decided to stay down longer, the noise was so loud it was obvious it was above my head. Any vessels should be at least 100m from a boat flying the \'A\' (Divers Down) flag, most divers only deploy buoys when they ascend, some may deploy them at a depth of 5m. HMS Enterprise was drawing 5.4m that evening and would have at least seriously injured anyone at that depth.[/quote] Is it sensible to dive with no way of locating your position from a surface point of view if buoys are only deployed during ascent? How did you know you were within 100m of the dive boat? I'm wondering if the dive boat didn't remain static, with 11 people on board how many were in the water and how was all their locations known by the boat so a 100m cordon could be maintained by that dive boat? You could say you orientated yourself by noise of the dive boat, although I'm not sure how accurate that is.
Mark Milburn wrote:
I was one of the divers in the water, I could hear a large vessel and a small vessel travelling over my head. I decided to stay down longer, the noise was so loud it was obvious it was above my head. Any vessels should be at least 100m from a boat flying the \'A\' (Divers Down) flag, most divers only deploy buoys when they ascend, some may deploy them at a depth of 5m. HMS Enterprise was drawing 5.4m that evening and would have at least seriously injured anyone at that depth.
Is it sensible to dive with no way of locating your position from a surface point of view if buoys are only deployed during ascent? How did you know you were within 100m of the dive boat? I'm wondering if the dive boat didn't remain static, with 11 people on board how many were in the water and how was all their locations known by the boat so a 100m cordon could be maintained by that dive boat? You could say you orientated yourself by noise of the dive boat, although I'm not sure how accurate that is.
Posted by: Mark Milburn on 11:04pm Wed 4 Jun 08
[quote][bold]billposter[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]Mark Milburn[/bold] wrote: I was one of the divers in the water, I could hear a large vessel and a small vessel travelling over my head. I decided to stay down longer, the noise was so loud it was obvious it was above my head. Any vessels should be at least 100m from a boat flying the \'A\' (Divers Down) flag, most divers only deploy buoys when they ascend, some may deploy them at a depth of 5m. HMS Enterprise was drawing 5.4m that evening and would have at least seriously injured anyone at that depth.[/quote] Is it sensible to dive with no way of locating your position from a surface point of view if buoys are only deployed during ascent? How did you know you were within 100m of the dive boat? I'm wondering if the dive boat didn't remain static, with 11 people on board how many were in the water and how was all their locations known by the boat so a 100m cordon could be maintained by that dive boat? You could say you orientated yourself by noise of the dive boat, although I'm not sure how accurate that is.[/quote] Yes it is sensible to deploy a buoy for ascent only, while you are on the bottom there are no issues. Issues are more likely to occur during an ascent, careless water craft users like jetskiers, have been know to use divers buoys as turning marks. Deploying a buoy for the duration of dive would cause the divers more problems, snagging, entrapment etc.
I would have no idea if I was within 100m of the dive boat, but 100m is a long distance to travel underwater in one direction unless the current is running, then we would all be moving in the same direction. 100m is a safe reasonable distance, the bigger the distance the better. Many times I have had to put my boat between divers and boats heading towards the divers, they have no idea what an A flag is or how to answer a VHF. You can't orientate yourself by the noise of a dive boat, you can hear noises but you'd have no idea what direction they are coming from.
The issue here is that a boat ignored both the A flag and the VHF calls from the dive boat and the coastguard.
If you were a diver, as the captain of the ship told us he was, you would understand all this from a divers point of view.
As to Jason Rosevear comment, we were no in the shipping lanes, but in the bay off of Pendennis where hundreds of divers dive every year.
billposter wrote:
Mark Milburn wrote: I was one of the divers in the water, I could hear a large vessel and a small vessel travelling over my head. I decided to stay down longer, the noise was so loud it was obvious it was above my head. Any vessels should be at least 100m from a boat flying the \'A\' (Divers Down) flag, most divers only deploy buoys when they ascend, some may deploy them at a depth of 5m. HMS Enterprise was drawing 5.4m that evening and would have at least seriously injured anyone at that depth.
Is it sensible to dive with no way of locating your position from a surface point of view if buoys are only deployed during ascent? How did you know you were within 100m of the dive boat? I'm wondering if the dive boat didn't remain static, with 11 people on board how many were in the water and how was all their locations known by the boat so a 100m cordon could be maintained by that dive boat? You could say you orientated yourself by noise of the dive boat, although I'm not sure how accurate that is.
Yes it is sensible to deploy a buoy for ascent only, while you are on the bottom there are no issues. Issues are more likely to occur during an ascent, careless water craft users like jetskiers, have been know to use divers buoys as turning marks. Deploying a buoy for the duration of dive would cause the divers more problems, snagging, entrapment etc.
I would have no idea if I was within 100m of the dive boat, but 100m is a long distance to travel underwater in one direction unless the current is running, then we would all be moving in the same direction. 100m is a safe reasonable distance, the bigger the distance the better. Many times I have had to put my boat between divers and boats heading towards the divers, they have no idea what an A flag is or how to answer a VHF. You can't orientate yourself by the noise of a dive boat, you can hear noises but you'd have no idea what direction they are coming from.
The issue here is that a boat ignored both the A flag and the VHF calls from the dive boat and the coastguard.
If you were a diver, as the captain of the ship told us he was, you would understand all this from a divers point of view.
As to Jason Rosevear comment, we were no in the shipping lanes, but in the bay off of Pendennis where hundreds of divers dive every year.
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