Details are already starting to emerge of the frantic rescue efforts that saved the crew of the stricken vessel on Saturday evening and which continued until the early hours of Sunday.
I am finding this whole case very curious. The Manawanui is formerly the extremely capable Edda Vonn. The design is a DP2 construction support vessel with a heave compensated subsea crane. DP2 stands for dynamic positioning level 2 which means two fully redundant machinery and control systems. It has azimuth stern thrusters and two bow thrusters. All machinery systems are segregated and on top of this it will have a minimum of one compartment damage stability. This is not an easy vessel to (a) loose propulsion on and (b) sink in the absence of a very large hull breach. Something very strange has happened here. I hope that we get to see the outcomes of this investigation.
Thanks, it will indeed be interesting. Commander Sharpe, writing in the Daily Telegraph, raised another issue that he thought may be a factor. His view is that difficulties can sometimes arise from commercial ships that are retooled as naval ships and that the hard naval maintenance regime can sometimes cause problems. Only time will tell whether that is a factor in this case.
Yes, this is a good observation. The integration of naval hardware, software systems, crewing structures and management processes would be challenging. There are numerous latent failure modes that would potentially emerge when trying to interface these additional layers of complexity. There is also the consideration that the NZ navy is now essentially a training Insititute and as such there are a lot of trainees / cadets onboard what is a very complex vessel.
As a naval officer I applaud the balanced and well reasoned article. It is truly appreciated.
Thank you - I really appreciate your comment.
Great article thanks Philip.
I am finding this whole case very curious. The Manawanui is formerly the extremely capable Edda Vonn. The design is a DP2 construction support vessel with a heave compensated subsea crane. DP2 stands for dynamic positioning level 2 which means two fully redundant machinery and control systems. It has azimuth stern thrusters and two bow thrusters. All machinery systems are segregated and on top of this it will have a minimum of one compartment damage stability. This is not an easy vessel to (a) loose propulsion on and (b) sink in the absence of a very large hull breach. Something very strange has happened here. I hope that we get to see the outcomes of this investigation.
Thanks, it will indeed be interesting. Commander Sharpe, writing in the Daily Telegraph, raised another issue that he thought may be a factor. His view is that difficulties can sometimes arise from commercial ships that are retooled as naval ships and that the hard naval maintenance regime can sometimes cause problems. Only time will tell whether that is a factor in this case.
Yes, this is a good observation. The integration of naval hardware, software systems, crewing structures and management processes would be challenging. There are numerous latent failure modes that would potentially emerge when trying to interface these additional layers of complexity. There is also the consideration that the NZ navy is now essentially a training Insititute and as such there are a lot of trainees / cadets onboard what is a very complex vessel.