Comments by "TheEvertw" (@TheEvertw) on "What's Going on With Shipping?" channel.

  1. From a systems point of view, trying to control the ship by giving specific rudder actions is completely inappropriate for a pilot. The pilot does not know how quickly the rudder moves from port to starboard, how strong the action is, and other characteristics of the behavior of the ship for different loads. From the plot I had concluded in 2021 that the ship was steered in a way that was unstable, i.e. giving too much rudder action for too long, causing overshoot in the opposite direction. The compensation of that overshoot introduced more overshoot, etc. An unstable control loop caused by inappropriate command of the rudder. To be honest, that the pilot gave hard port or hard starboard commands to the helmsman should have been a red flag for the Master, at which point he should have kicked them off the bridge. Or perhaps when they gave instructions for a high speed, which aggravated the squat, push and suction effects. At low speeds, the action of the bow screw would have also been more effective.
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  2. Sigh. Hitting the propeller on the bottom sure is a good sign for the navigability of the approach to Portsmouth. Looks like the UK is reverting to its original state of European backwater it had before the Glorious Revolution, with its waters barely accessible for modern shipping.
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  3. The laws of the sea are ill equipped to deal with a complex situation like this. The Egyptian authorities acted shamefully in seizing the ship, effectively blackmailing the owners into a settlement long before all the facts were clear. I hope that with this report in hand, the owners / insurer can recoup some of the settlement money.
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