[Peetwo]

Emerald Class mouldy Swiss Cheese update: 5/12/2022

Courtesy MattO, via the SMH:

High number of steering failures involving new Manly ferries revealed

Matt O'Sullivan
December 5, 2022 — 5.00am

The extent of defects plaguing three new Manly passenger ferries has been revealed in internal government data that shows they have suffered at least a dozen steering failures over the past year...



...The internal figures also show the six-strong fleet of older first-generation Emerald-class ferries, used mostly on inner-harbour routes, have suffered seven steering failures over the past two years.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has confirmed that one of those six vessels – the Catherine Hamlin – had a steering failure a week ago.

The regulator still has an order in place on the Fairlight preventing it from carrying passengers until steering control system faults have been fixed and verified by a marine surveyor...

Hmm...so AMSA do have a safety directive on the Fairlight but yet they haven't grounded all the Emeralds despite evidence of common system failures across the whole fleet?? 

Coming back to safety surveying and certification:

Two, three hundred fully clothed passengers; some below deck to avoid the weather – duck me. The fall out would be monolithic. Time for independent surveyors; OTSI and AMSA to step out from behind the political smoke screen and Perform Design Function (PDF) without fear or favour. If it were a single aircraft; the roof would be off the hanger by now, well and truly. If it was 'fleet wide' - well; you can imagine the ructions (see 737 Max).....

Wiki -  A broach is an abrupt, involuntary change in a vessel's course, towards the wind, resulting from loss of directional control, when the vessel's rudder becomes ineffective. (Rudder aka Steering).

Full, independent survey and AMSA clearance of all outstanding matters; all published,  before return to service (RTS) is what the public expect and have a right to. Anything less is a corruption of the promises made. If anyone believes 'safety' is expensive; wait until the accident bill turns up.... 

On the parallels with the 737-MAX certification, the following is an article from the popular US Avweb publication:

FAA Proposes Overhaul Of Airliner Certification

By Russ Niles -Published: November 30, 2022 Updated: December 1, 2022



The FAA has published its response to the 737 MAX certification debacle in the form of a 117-page Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that aims to rid the system of loopholes and regulatory gaps that played a role in the tragic crashes of the aircraft shortly after it was signed off. “The FAA proposes revised and new safety standards to reduce the likelihood of potentially catastrophic risks due to latent failures in critical systems,” the agency says in its overview of the NPRM. “With this action, the FAA seeks to reduce risk associated with airplane accidents and incidents that have occurred in service, and reduce risk associated with new technology in flight control systems.” The overhaul is directed at Part 25 transport category aircraft.

The NPRM focuses mainly on what it terms “latent failures,” which it defines as failures that are “not apparent to the flightcrew or maintenance personnel” and can combine with other failures with catastrophic results. In the case of the MAX, bad data from angle of attack indicators caused a hidden software system designed to improve handling characteristics to push a Lion Air and an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft into unrecoverable dives. A total 346 people were killed.

Because much of the technology is new, the way systems can fail are also new and that, says the FAA, requires an overhaul of the certification process. Fundamental to that overhaul is the standardization of safety criteria not only at the FAA but with regulators in other countries, the NPRM says. The document is likely to prompt much discussion among regulators and the industry, but the agency says it’s work that has to be done so that accidents can be prevented rather than serve as a primary source of data on aircraft flaws. “The proposed standards would also improve the likelihood that operators discover latent failures and address them before they become an unsafe condition, rather than discovering them after they occur and the FAA addressing them with airworthiness directives (ADs),” the NPRM says.

Now with the subject of 'latent failures' front of mind consider this 25 July article by MattO... :

Damage to new Manly ferries to worsen, leaked report says

Matt O'Sullivan
July 25, 2022 — 5.00am

Damage discovered on a new Manly ferry just months after it began carrying passengers is expected to worsen and occur on the other overseas-built vessels now used on the popular Sydney harbour route, a leaked report warns.

Independent inspectors found a deformed plate, buckling to a crucial internal rod, and cracked coatings and welds near the front of the new Fairlight ferry in April not evident during an examination about four months earlier.

They warned that similar damage appeared to be on the Balmoral, one of the three new Emerald-class ferries which sail between Circular Quay and Manly. The Balmoral was not subject to the same inspection as the Fairlight in April.


The leaked report reveals damage to a new Manly ferry just months after it started services.

The leaked report by independent inspectors hired by Transdev, which operates the government-owned fleet, warns that the damage to the Fairlight’s port side “will only increase with time due to further fatigue of the area”.

The inspectors say that, while unlikely to compromise the 34-metre ferry’s structural integrity, it is likely that over time the damage will appear on the starboard side of the Fairlight as well as the two other new Manly ferries because they “share the same design and operational loadings”.

“Some evidence of this is already present on Balmoral,” the report says.



The inspectors who examined the Fairlight in April believe the damage to the plating near the front of the ferry was the result of flexing of its hull. They do not think the buckling was due to the ferry hitting a wharf or other structure.

“If the damage is simply repaired without addressing the cause, any repairs are likely to be ineffective in the long term,” the report said.

The new Emerald-class ferries are at the centre of a fierce debate over whether they can handle large swells near the entrance to Sydney Harbour as capably as the larger Freshwater vessels they are designed to replace on the Manly route.


Damage to the new Fairlight ferry.

A leaked Transdev memo in February revealed captains of the new Manly ferries had been warned not to sail directly into waves near Sydney Heads in heavy swells in case their vessels became airborne.

Labor transport spokeswoman Jo Haylen said Manly ferry services had been cancelled and passengers stranded because the new vessels had serious systemic flaws.

“This damning internal report shows that normal repair works won’t be enough to fix the government’s defective overseas-built Emerald-class Manly ferries,” she said. “Their decision to purchase overseas-built ferries has led to a marked decline in the quality of ferry services.”

Transport for NSW launched a review in May of the Emerald-class vessels. The new ferries’ poor performance has also led to the agency taking “contractual actions” against Transdev.

Last month the Fairlight was temporarily removed from service after the ferry’s fire pump was found to be faulty.

The transport agency said in a statement that it was “closely monitoring” the performance of ferry services, especially the fleet’s reliability and availability.

“We are focused on providing a reliable service for customers and will continue to work with the operator of the service to ensure the best outcome for customers,” it said.

Transdev said inspections in April confirmed the second-generation Emerald-class vessels were structurally sound, and the “minor cosmetic issues” identified had “no impact on safety”.

The costs of repairs were covered under warranty with the shipbuilder, the French company said.

However, Action for Public Transport spokesman Graeme Taylor said the larger Freshwater ferries needed to be permanently returned to the Manly route, and the smaller Emerald-class ferries used on easier inner harbour runs instead.

“As the Emeralds continue to flex, the welds on the hulls will start to crack and water will get into the hulls and the vessels will corrode from the inside out,” he said.

“They are simply not a strong enough to withstand the wave action at Sydney Heads.”

Hmm...so questions on original vessel and operator certification to AMSA? Yeah..Nah..maybe?? 

MTF...P2     

PS: "Fasten your seatbelts!" 

Wonder what the ferry operator's EPs are for a capsized Emerald class vessel with 300 odd POB in the Sydney harbour heads...