Collision: Passenger Ship vs. Pleasure Craft – 5 Injured on St. Lawrence River

TSB Canada – Collision on St. Lawrence River: Passenger Vessel and Pleasure Craft Incident Highlights Navigational Vigilance | TSB Report M24C0142

Collision: Passenger Ship & Pleasure Craft – 5 Injured

What Happened: On June 27, 2024, a collision occurred on the St. Lawrence River off Longueuil, Quebec, involving the passenger vessel Navark Faucon Millenium and a pleasure craft. The passenger vessel was carrying 38 passengers and 2 crew members.

The pleasure craft sustained significant damage, resulting in injuries to 5 of its 6 occupants, while some passengers aboard the Navark Faucon Millenium also sustained injuries. This incident underscores the inherent risks of navigating busy waterways where commercial and recreational traffic frequently interact.

Both vessel were arguably operating at unsafely high speeds, with a closing speed of 52 knots in a river narrow channel. 

Immediate Operational Checks:

• Lookout Effectiveness: Verify that a continuous and effective lookout is maintained by sight, hearing, and all available means, especially in congested waterways and areas with mixed vessel traffic. Ensure lookouts are specifically tasked with identifying smaller, less conspicuous vessels.
• Be aware – pleasure craft operators are not commercial operators, and may have minimal watchkeeping training or experience. Their watchkeeping abilities and experience are often very limited, and situational awareness is often poor. 
• Safe Speed Assessment: Re-evaluate and confirm that the vessel’s speed is safe for the prevailing conditions, considering visibility, traffic density, manoeuvrability, and the presence of recreational craft.
• Navigate in a PREDICTABLE manner.
• Navigation Equipment Utilization: Confirm proper and continuous use of radar, AIS, and other electronic navigation aids to detect and track all vessels in the vicinity, particularly those that may be difficult to spot visually.
• Passage Planning Review: Ensure that passage plans for areas with high traffic density or mixed vessel types explicitly address collision avoidance strategies, communication protocols, and contingency actions.
• Do you have a holding area marked on the ECDIS? How will you stem the tide or hold position when the wind and currents change? Etc.

Lessons Learned:

• The critical importance of maintaining a continuous and effective lookout, especially when navigating in congested waterways or areas frequented by smaller, less conspicuous vessels.
• Avoid interruptions on the bridge while navigating in restricted waters with high traffic density. 
• Attention should not be divided! Protect it by preventing alarms on ECDIS and equipment, while limiting demands on the navigator. 
• Adherence to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs), particularly Rules 5 (Lookout), 6 (Safe Speed), 7 (Risk of Collision), and 8 (Action to Avoid Collision), is paramount for all vessels, regardless of size or type.
• Effective Bridge Resource Management (BRM) is essential for anticipating and mitigating risks in high-traffic areas, ensuring clear communication, shared situational awareness, and appropriate delegation of tasks among the bridge team.
• Vessel operators must be acutely aware of the limitations of navigation equipment in detecting small craft and compensate with heightened visual vigilance.

Commercial operators and vessel masters have a responsibility to risk assess the operations in their workplace. It is the opinion of Independent Marine Ltd that commercial vessels should never operate with only 2 crew on board.

In this case, having only one deckhand to assist the master almost guarantees an incident at some point. The vessel master can become distracted trying to manage deckhand activities, and then suffer cognitive overload more easily. Or, if the deckhand has an accident or falls overboard, the master will be unable to maintain a proper command of the vessel and help address the injured or overboard deckhand effectively at the same time.  If the vessel master suffers a medical incident, is the deckhand capable of providing first aid and navigating the vessel effectively at the same time? How will passengers be returned ashore if the master is incapacitated?

It has long been known by industry bodies, trade unions, and the recommended safe working practices of many maritime nations that deckhands should never work alone. Small vessel operators who choose to operate with only two crew are often knowingly stretching or breaking the rules of their minimum safe manning document. Flag states are often incapable of addressing violations in time. Therefore, it is vital that annual risk assessment reviews and SMS reviews identify robust training and mitigations against the risks of operating short-handed. 

Tags: Collision, Inland Waterway, Passenger Vessel, Pleasure Craft, Lookout, COLREGs, BRM

Official Report

Read the full safety report here: Marine transportation safety investigation report M24C0142