Into the Raging Sea

Engineer Jeff Mathias came up to the bridge to check in. He’d been working all morning with the five Polish contractors hired to get the ship ready for the cold Alaskan waters.

Jeff had served as a chief engineer on other ships for several years after graduating from Massachusetts Maritime Academy, but with three young kids at home, he preferred to work on land. In lieu of that, this short, temporary, and lucrative job managing the Polish riding gang on El Faro fit the bill.

“Look at you,” Jeff said to Danielle, gently teasing his fellow New Englander. “All freshened up, huh?”

She laughed and offered him coffee.

For Jeff Mathias, there was nothing like being at sea and the good income that came with it. But since the birth of his first born, he struggled to balance his passion for shipping with his home life. Overseeing the Polish workers was a good compromise because Jeff could do short stints at sea. He’d worked out his shipping schedule earlier that month so that he could be home for his daughter’s first day of school and was scheduled to fly home from San Juan that weekend.

Jeff’s ultimate goal was to turn his family’s struggling cranberry farm into a destination. In the fall during harvest time, elementary school groups visited, usually guided by Jeff’s mom, to learn more about the ancient craft of growing the fruit, first introduced to Massachusetts’s English settlers in the 1600s by the Algonquins. Loaded with vitamin C, cranberries played a critical role in early colonial shipping, consumed by New England’s whalers and sailors to stave off scurvy during long voyages.

Jeff had spent much of his shore time building an elaborate play castle and maze to attract more visitors to the farm’s cranberry bogs. He hoped this would generate additional income to help fight off encroaching real estate development. Just beyond the playhouse and maze, behind a copse of pines, a cul-de-sac of new homes had sprung seemingly overnight. The houses were nearly done but the dirt between the Mathiases’ land and the development was still stripped and raw.

Danielle respected Jeff and his opinions and was relieved to have someone knowledgeable aboard who wasn’t part of the official El Faro command chain. He could speak more freely and could either reassure her that they would be okay or maybe confront the captain if he thought they were in trouble.

In her usual light and girlish tone, she gestured to the BVS graphic: “Do you wanna see the pretty pictures with the pretty-pretty colors?”

When he saw the deep scarlets, intense blues, and bright saffrons on a normally pastel-hued map, Jeff swallowed hard. “Wow, look at that.”

“That’s us,” she said, pointing to their current location. “And that’s the storm,” she said. “This is tomorrow.” She clicked forward in time. The ship and the hurricane were destined to collide.

“Where are we right now?” Jeff asked.

She pointed to a spot forty miles northeast of Grand Bahama island.

“Really?” Jeff said, incredulous that they were heading straight for a storm system.

“Tentative,” she said. “We are taking a track line a little bit further south, down here, so this is where we’re gonna be in the morning,” she said, confirming the direct hit.

Jeff spent some time studying the chart for possible escape routes. He saw a few deepwater channels that would get them out of the way. “Can you duck down between the islands here?”

Danielle knew Davidson. He didn’t have any interest in changing the plan and she told Jeff as much, silently gauging his reaction. Full steam ahead to San Juan.

“Is the captain gonna grab Old Bahama Channel back?” Jeff asked, thinking about how much ocean Joaquin would churn up by Friday night.

“Yeah,” Danielle said. Joaquin was forecast to intensify in a few days, so Davidson wanted to play it safe and sail on the lee of the islands, then skirt the Florida coast all the way back up to Jacksonville. “I think the El Yunque will be taking that route coming back up, too,” she said.

In fact, Davidson had exchanged emails with the captain of El Yunque earlier that day and learned that his ship was sprinting back to Florida along their usual route. As they passed Joaquin, the captain informed him, they experienced gusts in excess of 100 knots. That on-site observation wasn’t consistent with the NHC reports. Computer models and satellite imaging were already failing to accurately capture the rapidly intensifying storm.

What El Faro’s officers needed was a working anemometer, but the one onboard hadn’t worked for some months. Several people had mentioned the problem to TOTE, but a repair or replacement was slow in coming. The ship’s anemometer was so dodgy that Danielle joked to Jeff, “We’ll just stick Jackie Jones out there. We’ll use the Jackie Gauge. If he gets blown off the bridge, we’ll say, Oh, it was about 190 miles per hour.”

Understanding true windspeed and direction can be difficult when you’re moving because you’re creating your own wind. (Think of riding a bicycle on a calm day. Go fast and you’ll feel a breeze. It’s not the wind; it’s you.) An anemometer uses vectors to make the calculation, taking into account the ship’s heading and speed. For example, if an 18-knot wind is at your back and you’re traveling at 18 knots, the apparent wind—the wind you perceive—would be zero, because you’re both moving at the same rate in the same heading. Your vectors cancel each other out.

The anemometer is a critical piece of equipment because true wind direction can tell an experienced mariner where he or she is relative to a major weather system. A quick way to do this can be found in Nathaniel Bowditch’s The American Practical Navigator—a thick navy blue book found aboard nearly every floating vessel. Continuously published since 1802, it’s considered the mariner’s bible. Bowditch describes Buys Ballot’s law, a handy rule of thumb invented by a Dutch meteorologist in 1857 that’s based on the unassailable fact that in the Northern Hemisphere, hurricane winds blow in a counterclockwise direction. The rule says this: When your back is to the wind, stick out your arms, making a T. Your left hand will point to the low, your right to the high. The low, of course, is the hurricane’s center. According to that rule, as long as winds were slamming El Faro’s port side, the crew could safely assume that the hurricane was dead ahead.

In the dark in a hurricane, however, it’s all but impossible to determine true wind direction without an anemometer because the frenzied waves and winds create a chaotic condition, like being inside a Dyson vacuum. From the outside, the larger system makes sense. But when you’re in the middle of it, it’s impossible to organize the powerful forces into a clear, coherent picture.

Jeff considered their situation, but as an extra hand aboard the ship, he couldn’t do much about it. Instead, he worried about how the weather would affect his weekend plans. He was rushing to finish his maze in time for the Halloween rush, and Joaquin could put a kink in his progress.

“The hurricane is going to shoot north after this?” Jeff asked.

“They’re predicting that it will hit New York this Saturday,” Danielle answered. That meant it would probably begin dumping rain on coastal Massachusetts by Saturday night. Jeff might get in a day of work.

Jackie Jones brought their attention back to the ship. He reminded Jeff that the Polish contractors needed to tie up their equipment.

“Absolutely,” Jeff said. “The bottles are secured, pipes are all lashed down. So yeah, that should be all right.”

“Lash down your workers?” Danielle joked.

“They’re all excited,” he answered.

“I don’t think they realize what they’re getting into,” she said with a nervous giggle.

“See what color their heads are tomorrow,” Jackie cracked, and the three had a good laugh. They knew they’d all be green tomorrow, too, if the weather turned as foul as expected.

At 2:30, Davidson came up to the bridge to remind Danielle that he was thinking about taking the Old Bahama Channel on the northbound run back to Jacksonville. Joaquin was forecasted to intensify in a few days, so Davidson wanted to play it safe and sail in the lee of the islands, then hug the Florida coast all the way back up to Jacksonville. He was obsessing about this proposed route change and was anxious to get TOTE’s response to his request. Maybe he thought they’d thank him for being so proactive and conscientious. He was working hard to please the shoreside folks.

“I have to wait for confirmation from the office, but I put it out there,” he said about the rerouting. “And I’ll let you know.”

“Does the company want to give permission now?” Danielle asked, half surprised, half exasperated. “Because it used to be just, We’re doing it. You people are sitting in your office behind a desk and we’re out here. We’re doing it. Hell yeah.”

“Well, I’m extending that professional courtesy because it does add 160 nautical miles to the distance,” said Davidson defensively.

“Yeah, but rerouting also saves stress on the ship,” she said.

Why was she giving him a hard time? “That’s why I just said, ‘Hey, I would like to take this going northbound. I’ll wait for your reply.’ I don’t think they’ll say no. I gave them a good reason why, because if you follow this hurricane track down, then look what it does on October third, fourth, and fifth. And that’s right where we’re going.”

“Yeah, and lightly loaded, it gets even worse,” said Danielle. After unloading in San Juan, El Faro took on mostly empty containers. Without cargo weight, she sat higher in the water and would bounce around in the wind and waves.

“So I just put it out there and we’ll see what happens.”

Davidson didn’t like his second mate’s nervous energy. It rubbed him the wrong way. He had to put this whole thing to rest. “We’re gonna be far enough south that we’re not gonna hit the damn thing,” he declared. “Watch. Gonna get a little rougher, but these ships can take it.”

This exchange is one of the most contentious pieces of El Faro saga. Much time has been spent parsing Davidson’s apparent request to take the Old Bahama Channel home, which he did via email earlier that morning to multiple managers at TOTE’s Jacksonville office. Did he actually need the company’s permission to reroute? His request was carefully worded and thoughtful:

“I would like to transit the old Bahama Channel on our return North bound leg to Jacksonville? This route adds approximately 160 nautical miles to the route for a total of 1,261 nautical miles. We need to make around 21 knots for the scheduled 10:05, 10:45 arrival time at Jacksonville pilot station.

I have monitored Hurricane Joaquin tracking erratically for the better part of a week. Sometime after 9/30 0200 she began a southwesterly track early this morning. Adjusted our direct normal route in a more southeasterly direction towards San Juan, Puerto Rico, which will put us 65 plus/minus nautical miles south of the eye. Joaquin appears to be tracking now as forecasted and I anticipate us being on the backside of her by 10/01 0800.

Presently, conditions are favorable and we’re making good speed. All departments have been duly notified as before. I have indicated a later than normal arrival time in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Anticipating some loss in speed throughout the night. I will update the ETA tomorrow morning during our regular pre-arrival report to San Juan Port, etc.”

Was Davidson planning to plow through in spite of the looming hurricane because he felt pressure to get to Puerto Rico on time? Had TOTE chastised him for playing it safe and going through the Old Bahama Channel in August during Tropical Storm Erika?

TOTE maintains that scheduling was never an issue. The captain is in complete command of the ship and its route. TOTE says that in all instances, safety comes first. The company claims that this email exchange was simply a formality—regardless of how one might read it, Davidson had full command of his vessel and his course. He did not need permission to take a different route.

That may be true at TOTE, but most ship’s masters I interviewed tell a different story. Although a few can’t believe that a company would pressure anyone to go into a storm, most captains (both foreign and domestic) say that fending off schedulers and managers is simply part of the job. The office worries about customers and profits; captains worry about everything else. Sometimes their interests diverge.

A captain’s best attitude, my sources say, is the one that keeps crew and cargo safe. With pride, they’ve told their schedulers: You can find another captain or fire me, but I’m not putting this ship or cargo in danger. I can always find another job. They say that it’s absurd to take orders from a person sitting behind a desk. He or she can’t see what’s going on at sea, usually lacks nautical experience, and can’t imagine the conditions the crew is dealing with. Sure, the ship might be able to pull through a weather system, but if a new car breaks loose and smashes up fifty others, would it really matter that they arrived on time?

Regardless, some people, for whatever reason, cave to economic pressures. They assess their risk and decide they’ve got too much to lose if they defy the shipping company. It’s not worth fighting. One ship’s master told me about the time he was ready to ship out of Antwerp when a storm kicked up off the coast of England. He kept his vessel in port while another captain in his fleet chose to steam ahead. The ship that sailed was battered and beaten by the waves and winds, but it did get to the next port. The first captain showed me a photo on his iPhone of the resultant damage: mayhem aboard. Everything—the cars, trucks, and containers—was smashed to bits.

Davidson didn’t get an answer to his request right away. On September 30, the one person on land in charge of keeping TOTE’s ships safe at sea was attending an industry conference in Atlanta. His name was Captain John Lawrence, TOTE’s designated person ashore (DPA) and the manager of safety and operations. Lawrence was responsible for the welfare of twenty-six vessels. When he was out of the office, it wasn’t clear who was supposed to take calls or emails in his stead. TOTE didn’t have a clear organizational chart to address that inevitability.

TOTE’s officers aboard the ships didn’t understand the company’s structure, either. Davidson sent his message to half a dozen people, assuming someone at TOTE would eventually respond.

Lawrence seemed like a questionable choice for the job of safety officer at a shipping company. In 2010, he held a similar position at a New York–based tug and barge company when one of his Delaware River tug drivers pushed a barge right over a disabled duckboat filled with tourists, killing two people. The duckboat operator tried to radio a warning the tug driver that he was heading straight for them, but never got a response. During the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation of that incident, the tug driver admitted that he’d been using his cell phone and his laptop for personal reasons belowdecks instead of keeping watch. Following a criminal trial, the tug driver went to jail. What kind of safety culture had Lawrence fostered at that company that would allow such a thing to happen?

And now, as El Faro steamed full speed on a collision course with a hurricane, Lawrence was out of communication. No one in TOTE’s office was tracking any of their vessels, nor were they tracking the developing storm. It’s difficult to fathom how that could happen these days, especially since a ship’s location is publicly available on any number of vessel tracking websites. You don’t even need to log in. Just google a ship’s name and you’ll instantly find it anywhere in the world.

A logistics company’s most valuable assets, along with the cargo and the people aboard, are its vessels. Why wasn’t anyone at TOTE following them? One shipping company operator I spoke to said he considers the ships his children. He follows them constantly as they motor around the world. Denmark-based Maersk, among the world’s biggest shippers, doesn’t just follow its vessels’ tracks. It also installs cameras and microphones in the engine room, on the bridge, and in the cargo holds, which send video and audio back to the main office in real time. This information can help the Maersk managers quickly identify, solve, and even prevent problems. TOTE had no such monitoring equipment aboard El Faro.

TOTE’s reply to Davidson’s request finally came in more than five hours later—a simple, “Captain Mike, diversion request through Old Bahama Channel understood and authorized. Thank you for the heads up. Kind regards.” The email came from Jim Fisker-Andersen, director of ship management for TOTE, who was traveling back to his Jacksonville office from San Francisco, after overseeing some issues with the new LNG ship.

Why did Fisker-Andersen decide to reply to Davidson’s email? “Because there was an unanswered question that I didn’t want to leave open ended. I didn’t want the email to go unanswered,” he later told investigators.

When he was asked where Captain Lawrence was during that time, he said, “I don’t know.”

Did anyone onshore at TOTE track ships, Fisker-Andersen was asked. “No,” he said.

At least one person was tracking El Faro, though: Second Mate Charlie Baird.

From his South Portland home, he was glued to the Weather Channel that day. And with his girlfriend’s help, he was able to follow El Faro via her AIS (automatic identification signal) over the web. He watched in horror as she continued her course straight toward Hurricane Joaquin. Charlie sat all day on that sofa hoping against hope that someone on board had enough sense to turn the ship around.

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