Captain of Runaway Vessel ‘GO’ Explains the Crash
Last Friday we brought you footage of the motor yacht GO driving into the docks at St. Maarten. Today we bring you an update. According to the a report in the island’s local newspaper, The Daily Herald, the incident was caused by a computer malfunction that locked the vessel into gear, leading its captain, Simon Johnson, to choose “a deliberate impact with the St. Maarten Yacht Club wooden dock.”
Captain Johnson has driven GO 28,000 miles during his three and a half years with the vessel, and wanted to “set the record straight.” He described the moments that led to the crash and said the vessel started to malfunction just before they were to pass through the arterial road bridge: “There was nothing I seemed to be able to do; all the controls on the bridge were showing normal. I called the engine room and everything was normal down there.”
The Herald states that GO is “the widest yacht to date to come through the bridge with just 50 centimetres [approximately 19″] of space on each side left to pass.”
“I found I had extremely limited control, almost limited to only the bow thruster, but with now only 50 metres between us and the bridge I had to make a decision fast,” Captain Johnson added.
At this stage GO remains at the dock while waiting for the final assessments and repairs to be completed.
You can read the full story here.
As a licensed electrical engineer and mariner I was fascinated by this accident and pretty much knew what the likely cause of the accident was before reading the full account. I helped an owner with the delivery of his 1 year old Nordhavn 63 from Cabo to San Diego in 2016 with the purpose of the trip to take the boat back to the manufacturer for warranty work. The two major problems were a hydraulic failure that caused loss of steering and $50K of navigation gear that was inoperable. The boat was a marvel of marine engineering but the complexities of the systems aboard made me shake my head in awe. It was an easier boat to maneuver than my 36′ cutter with the computer control of the engines and thrusters. BUT you had to wonder what would happen if there was a glitch in the software. Unlike aircraft that are fly-by-wire the testing of yachts is much, much less stringent than required by the FAA. Expect more interesting videos like this and good on L38 for telling us the rest of the story. BTW, having read the full article it sounds like the pilot…er captain did a great job in dealing with the situation. Bravo to him and here is a toast to the K.I.S.S. principle.
As a guy who has piloted more than my share of both commercial boats and airplanes, I think that trying to pass a superyacht through a bridge with only 19 inches of clearance on each side while subject to wind and tides is just asking for trouble. I am a firm believer in “what can go wrong, will go wrong”.
Funny how this malfunctions occur after an accident, and not anytime during the other 3 years / 22,000 miles this Captain was on this ship safely out at sea.“Computer malfunction” seems unlikely to me. The only evidence of this is from the Captain who crashed it while making a seemingly I’ll-advised difficult pass-through. No diagnostics. No investigation report of yacht systems. No witnesses. And no similar reported “computer malfunctions at any other time – except after a crash.