Court Opinion

ID: 9627394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:43:05.33472+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:45.719030
License: Public Domain

JON O. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
with whom Judges Hall and Irizarry join, concurring:
I fully concur in Judge Hall’s comprehensive opinion, and write these additional words to urge the development of some form of sea traffic control system for crowded sea lanes to lessen the risk of a ship collision of the sort illustrated by this appeal. A sea traffic control system need not be as elaborate as modern air traffic control systems, but the lack of even a rudimentary nautical counterpart to the systems that monitor and control crowded air spaces cries out for a remedy. Such a system seems especially needed for sea lanes like the English Channel or at least for narrow portions of it like the Dover Straits, where many ships frequently travel in crossing patterns.1
*65The undisputed evidence in this case shows that several ships were sailing through the Hinder 1 buoy intersection in the English Channel at the same time on a foggy night in 2002. The Kariba and the Tricolor were heading from east to west, and the Clary was heading from south to north. The speed and course of the Clary and the Kariba were such that, in the absence of some adjustments by either vessel, they would collide. Ultimately, as detailed in Judge Hall’s opinion, the Kari-ba, trying to avoid being struck by the Clary, turned to starboard and collided with the Tricolor, which was overtaking the Kariba.
Judge Hall fully discusses the legal issues concerning the liability of each ship. My additional concern is the lack of a system for effectively alerting ships in crowded waterways to appropriate steps to be taken to avoid impending perils of collision. If air traffic controllers can monitor airplanes in crowded air spaces and require them to adjust speed, course, or altitude to avoid a collision, surely some similar system for requiring adjustment of speed or course can be implemented for crowded sea lanes like many of those in the English Channel.
The evidence discloses that some technology was in use on the night of the collision in this case, but it clearly was not sufficient. The Tricolor and the Kariba, but not the Clary, used an Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (“ARPA”), which shows the course and speed of nearby ships and calculates, for any two ships, their Closest Point of Approach (“CPA”). ARPA does not identify nearby ships by name or any other distinguishing characteristic that might facilitate communication. Clary’s even less effective radar system showed nearby ships, but displayed their course and speed and calculated a CPA only when a radar operator manually sought such data for a particular ship.
A shore-based radar facility at Dunk-erque on the French coast, known by the name of its manufacturer, Solfrelog, S.A., tracked the three vessels, but the Solfrelog station provided no communication to the ships it was tracking, communication that might have instructed on steps to avoid impending perils, or at least of the fact that such perils existed. From data stored in the Solfrelog system, the District Court was supplied with a series of video images of the various positions of the three ships in the minutes prior to the collision. Even these images, available after the fact, are inexact, as the District Court noted, because of a time lag in reflecting speed and course changes. See In re Otal Investments Ltd, No. 03-4304, 2006 WL 14512, at *2, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5293, at *7-*8 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 2006). And the images are recorded at intervals, rather than continuously.
A significant deficiency in collision avoidance, as of the date of the collision in this case, was the ineffectiveness of communications capability among nearby ships. The VHF radios on board the ships were customarily not used because they did not enable direct communication with only one vessel, the ship sending a message could not be certain whether nearby ships were receiving the message, and, if the signal was received by nearby ships, they could not determine from which ship it came.2 It is not clear whether these *66deficiencies are remedied even by the radiotelephone bridge-to-bridge requirements applicable to certain classes of vessels on navigable waters of the United States. See 33 U.S.C. §§ 1201-1208 (2000).
Since 2002, some improvements have been made. A notable development has been the introduction of automatic identification systems (“AIS”) permitting identification of vessels by name and other information, now required for some vessels on navigable waters of the United States, see 46 U.S.C. § 70114 (Supp. II 2002); 33 C.F.R. § 164.46 (2006), especially when used in connection with the orbiting satellites of the Global Positioning System (“GPS”). See http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/ enav/ais/default.htm (last visited June 27, 2007) (AIS); http://www8.garmin.com/ aboutGPS/ (last visited June 27, 2007) (GPS).
Internationally, Chapter V of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (“SOLAS”) has been amended to begin requiring AIS on large cargo vessels and all passenger ships. See http://www. imo.org/ Conventions/contents.asp?topic— id=257 & doc — id=647 (last visited June 27, 2007).
To improve after-the-fact understanding of what happened in the minutes prior to a collision, the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations sponsored agency concerned with shipping safety, has issued regulations requiring Voyage Data Recorders, but these are currently implemented only for passenger vessels. See http://www.blankrome.com/index.cfm? contentID=37 & itemID=1270 (last visited June 27, 2007).
It would seem imperative for maritime nations and vessel owners to cooperate in establishing some system to monitor ships in crowded sea lanes, especially those with ship crossing patterns, and require maneuvers to avoid collisions. For the English Channel, for example, sea traffic control centers might be established at a few points along the English and French coasts, handing off control of ships to adjacent stations, just as air traffic controllers hand off airplanes to nearby air traffic control centers. Proper radar and communications equipment could be more extensively required (at least for ships of sufficient size to preclude rapid adjustments of course and speed), and non-complying ships could be denied access to crowded sea lanes. Perhaps the appropriate international bodies might take the lead in developing such a system.
The perils of the sea have been with us since Noah sailed his ark, and some will always remain, but in the 21st century, I *67think we can do better at reducing the risk of ship collisions.

. As the District Court noted, "On a typical day there are 124 vessels crossing the traffic lane ... and 131 vessels following the traffic lane.’’ In re Otal Investments Ltd., No. 03-4304, 2006 WL 14512, at *11 n. 7, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5293, at *32 n. 7 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 2006).

. Captain Torbog, the expert for the Tricolor, when asked at trial whether Second Officer Toncic on the Clary could have called Captain Kamola on the Kariba and alerted the Kariba to the Clary’s planned turn, answered:
I don’t know if Kamola and Toncic would have understood each other on the VHF, would have been able to make a complete call without knowing who the other guy was or where he was. There were five *66vessels in that traffic lane that the Kariba was in, and this is why the British Government, the Chamber of Shipping and all the governments in that area of the world do not want people talking on VHFs because you get one ship talking to the wrong ship and then everybody gets, somebody gets messed up. Tr. 857.
Captain Torborg amplified his views in a report as follows:
The U.S. Radio Telephone Act requires radio contact between vessels approaching one another when they are within 50 miles of the United States. Europeans discourage the use of VHF for collision avoidance, and expect vessels to follow the COLREGS without attempting to communicate with vessels whose watch officer may not be completely fluent in the English language. It is in their training to limit all VHF radio communications. The United Kingdom Maritime and Coast Guard Agency has issued notices requesting the limitation of VHF use, ... and a similar admonition is published' in the Bridge Procedures Guide published by the International Chamber of Shipping.
Ex. 364, at 20.