Abandon Ship with a 15-Degree List: Lifeboat, Free-Fall Boat or Liferafts?
MV Ardent Spray, a 45,000 dwt bulk carrier, has lost main engine power in a Force 10 storm 60 nm off a lee shore. She is drifting at 1.2 knots, rolling 18–22°, and has taken a 15° list to starboard after water ingress in No. 3 hold. Green seas are breaking over the starboard rail. Wind is 45 knots from the starboard quarter and the sea is 6 m. The ship has a davit-launched lifeboat for 26 persons on the port side, stowed 18 m above the waterline, and a free-fall lifeboat aft for 22 persons. There are 21 crew, including one with a suspected fractured wrist and two who are badly seasick. Water temperature is 9 °C. The master orders abandon ship. The chief officer wants to launch the port lifeboat immediately; the second officer argues for the free-fall boat; the bosun wants to inflate the starboard liferafts instead.
1. Evaluate the three options and recommend one, explaining what drives the decision.
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Recommendation: the port davit-launched lifeboat, launched under control with the ship used as a windbreak, with the starboard liferafts as the backup plan.
The decision turns on three physical facts, not on preference.
- The list makes the port side the high side but also the lee side. Wind from the starboard quarter means the seas are breaking over starboard; anything launched there is likely to be swept, holed or driven back onto the hull. The port boat is on the weather-protected side, which is where you want to be. The cost is height: 18 m plus the list puts the boat far above the water, so it will swing and pendulum, and on a 22° roll it can slam back into the shell. That is a control problem, solved with bowsing tackles, frapping lines and a properly tended painter - not a reason to abandon the option.
- The free-fall boat is the wrong choice at this angle. Its launch geometry depends on the ship being close to upright and on a clear launch path; at 15° of list with heavy rolling, the boat can leave the ramp off-line, clip the structure or land badly. It is an excellent craft in its design envelope and a poor one outside it.
- Liferafts are the fallback, not the first move. Inflating them on the starboard side means putting them into breaking seas, and once inflated they cannot be re-stowed. Keep them as the option if the boat cannot be launched.
Before lowering: confirm the maker's list and trim limits for both craft, brief the coxswain, get the injured man and the seasick men into the boat first, and launch into a relative lull.
2. The boat is waterborne alongside with the crew embarked and the falls still hooked on. What are the critical actions in the next two minutes?
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This is the highest-risk minute of the whole evolution: the boat is loaded, the ship is rolling, and the hook is still under load.
- Keep the painter fast and the boat under control. The painter is led and secured before lowering; use it together with the boat's engine to hold the boat off the ship's side and head to wind. Without it, the boat drifts under the bilge and is crushed.
- Release both hooks completely and confirm it. Clear the falls, and get the release handle fully to the released position with the indicator showing released. A half-released hook that re-engages as the boat drops is a known killer. The coxswain confirms aloud; nobody stands under the davit head.
- Fend off and get clear before the ship rolls onto you. Use fenders and boat hooks, but the real protection is distance. Start the engine, keep the boat bows to the sea and be ready to slip the painter the moment the boat is clear of the hull and the propeller is safe.
- Slip and drive away. Cast off the painter at the last moment, steer away from the ship's side at an angle, and put distance between the boat and the hull - a drifting 45,000 dwt ship is the biggest hazard in the water.
- Then consolidate: close hatches, secure gear, head count, check for injuries, stream the sea anchor if needed to hold heading, and start the distress and survival routine. Securing the boat comes before searching for others, but only by a couple of minutes.
3. Two hours later the list has increased to 25° and the boat is standing by 300 m off the ship, where several liferafts have inflated. What are your considerations now?
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The situation has changed from "launch" to "recovery of survivors and withdrawal", and the list is the driver.
- Do not go back alongside. At 25° the ship is close to her angle of vanishing stability in that loading condition; she can capsize or roll violently with no warning, and anything within a boat's length of the hull will be crushed or swamped. Work the liferafts from the seaward side.
- Recover people from the rafts, not from the water, where possible. Approach each raft from downwind and down-sea, engine in neutral with the propeller stopped while people are near it, and take survivors off quickly. A raft full of wet, seasick, injured people is easier to empty than to tow in 6 m seas.
- Assume more people are in the water than you can see. Post lookouts on both bows with the best eyes, use the searchlight and the boat's engine noise sparingly, and work a short search pattern around the rafts before standing off.
- Prepare for the long haul. Water at 9 °C gives a fit adult in ordinary clothing a survival time measured in tens of minutes, not hours; the seasick men and the man with the fractured wrist will deteriorate fastest. Get everyone out of the wind, get the injured man splinted and wrapped, and start the distress and signalling plan now rather than after the search.
- Keep the liferafts together with you. They are your overflow accommodation and your visual signature; do not motor away from them to chase a bearing.