Background
The US flagged cargo ship El Faro crashed into the bottom of the sea at 7 33 AM the morning of October 1, 2015. She carried all 33 crew members with her. A network of hydrophones picked up the sound of the impact. The hydrophone operators, a branch of the US military, were not sure what the noise was. When, some time later, they learned an American cargo ship had disappeared they realized the noise was the El Faro hitting the ocean floor.
The El Faro was an unusual ship. She carried both vehicles, cars and truck trailers, and containers. More modern ships carry only containers – those ubiquitous rectangular boxes you see every day on highways, backed up to loading docks, stacked two high on freight trains, even higher on container ships.
She also carried a Voyage Data Recorder, a ship’s black box. The bridge was equipped with six microphones. The recorder captured 26 hours of dialogue leading up to the sinking. Rachel Slade used the bridge conversations in her compelling story of the El Faro. Her book, Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-three Mariners, One Megastorm. and the Sinking of El Faro, describes the precarious state of the US Merchant Marine, changes in the shipping industry, and El Faro’s fatal encounter with Hurricane Joaquin.
The Jones Act
The El Faro was assigned to the Jacksonville – San Juan trade route. As required by the Jones Act, all sea shipments from the US mainland to US states or territories have to go by US flagged and crewed ships. The Jones Act helps maintain a viable merchant marine, generates high-paying jobs, and allegedly raises costs.
The Jones Act, passed during the Woodrow Wilson administration, was clearly protectionist. One would have to think that the higher costs of American ships and sailors would be reflected in economic costs. Slade cites the World Economic Forum as stating the Act costs Americans at least $200 million a year (Slade, p. 141).
The results from other studies are not so clear cut. The American Maritime Partnership, in 2018, sponsored a study be economists in Boston (Reeves & Associates) and Puerto Rico (Estudioes Tecnicos). They concluded that transportation costs have no impact on retail costs on the island. Their methodology included a comparison of the prices of consumer goods in Jacksonville and San Juan.
I wondered just who or what the American Maritime Partnership is. I visited their website (google it – you’ll find it). Here’s a quote from the Who We Are section: The American Maritime Partnership (AMP) is the broadest, deepest coalition ever assembled to represent the domestic maritime industry. I’ll leave to you to wonder if the results might be biased in one way or another.
The Government Accounting Office, at the request of Congress, studied the potential effects of modifying the Jones Act. You can read it here.
The GAO noted that many foreign-flagged vessels visit the Port of San Juan. They carry things like Argentinian beef, Chilean wines, Peruvian mangoes, Korean cars, and Chinese steel. Since this is international trade, Jones Act restrictions do not apply.
The Jones Act requirements have created a discrete shipping market between the US and Puerto Rico. Four Jones Act carriers operate scheduled vehicle and container service between US ports and San Juan. They are Crowley, Horizon, Tote, and Trailer Bridge. They collectively offer both Ro/Ro (roll on/roll off, trailers and vehicles) and container service. Travel times from Jacksonville range from four days for the faster container ships to seven days for towed barges filled with parked trailers. The GAO report suggests that most shippers were happy with the service provided by these carriers.
The El Faro
The El Faro, then named Puerto Rico, was built in 1975 specifically for the Jones Act Puerto Rican trade. She was built by the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Corporation in Chester, PA. (All Jones Act ships have to be made in US shipyards, of US steel, by US shipbuilders). As originally constructed, the Puerto Rico was a roll on, roll off ship, with three decks available for cars and trailers.
The Puerto Rico was the younger sister of the Ponce de Leon. They, with one identical sister ship, revolutionized the US – Puerto Rico trade. The three ships were large (700 feet long) and fast. They provided scheduled service back and forth for trailers and cars.
In 1993, Tote, her new owner, had her lengthened by 90 feet in an Alabama shipyard. As Slade points out, this was a major conversion and the ship should have been brought to then current standards. The new standards required enclosed lifeboats. However,Tote argued against this expense and the US Coast Guard allowed the Puerto Rico to continue sailing with the two open lifeboats (Slade, 94). After the conversion, the ship, now named Northern Lights, plied the Tacoma, WA – Anchorage, AK route, another Jones Act route. She also sailed under charter to and from the Persian Gulf carrying military vehicles and supplies for the Gulf Wars.
By the way, if you want to gain a better understanding of an enclosed lifeboat, watch the movie Captain Phillips. The captain and three Somali pirates leave a hijacked container ship in one.
But the shipping industry was changing. Containers were more flexible than trailers – the boxes were removed from a truck chassis at the originating port, stacked on a ship, and placed on a chassis in the arriving port. Special cranes did the lifting. Ports around the world adapted to the new world of containerization.
Tote responded by modifying the now-renamed El Faro. Starting in 2003, the top deck was converted to carry stacks of containers. Once again, Tote’s lawyers argued successfully to retain the open lifeboats and not install a more modern enclosed lifeboat, as required by regulation. Somehow, the load line was raised by two feet, meaning the ship could carry more cargo by being deeper in the water. These and other changes escaped the notice of the Coast Guard (Slade, 174).
So, in 2015, the El Faro was 40 years old. She had been modified twice but still had the obsolete lifeboats. Her replacement, the Isla Bella, was ready for testing and would soon replace her. The El Faro left Jacksonville during the evening of September 29, 2015, with a cargo of 391 containers, 118 trailers, and 149 cars – 25 million pounds of cargo. She was heading into a storm.
Joaquin
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami routinely tracks low pressure areas in the North Atlantic – Caribbean basin. A low is initially named an invest, which can strengthen to a tropical depression, then to a tropical storm (when it is named), and then a hurricane.
The image above shows three numbered systems in the Atlantic. Invest 96L brought drenching rains to the Carolinas. Tropical Depression 9 petered out. Tropical Depression 10 became Tropical Storm Ida, which meandered harmlessly about the Central Atlantic before dissipating. Ida, briefly a hurricane, was the ninth named storm of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season.
The NHC took notice of a low, named Invest 98L, on Sunday, September 27. It was in the Atlantic, east of the Bahamas, and southeast of Bermuda. Invest 98L strengthened and became Tropical Depression 11 later that day. TD 11 was over warm waters (the warmest in that part of the ocean since records have been kept), which favored strengthening. A high pressure to the north pushed it slowly to the west or west south west. The high generated wind shear, which works against strengthening.
The NHC (and other international agencies) use sophisticated models to predict the intensity and track of gathering storms. TD 11 was a forecasters nightmare. Some models predicted growth to hurricane strength. Other models showed TD 11 being sucked up by the high and dissipating.
In the event, TD 11 became Tropical Storm Joaquin on Tuesday, September 29. It was still a difficult forecast environment, but some models were now predicting growth to a Category 1 hurricane by Thursday. Other models predicted dissipation by the weekend.
The NHC issued a hurricane warning for the Bahamas on Wednesday, September 30. It was now clear that Joaquin would strengthen. In fact, on October 1, Joaquin strengthened from a Category 1 to a Category 3 storm in less than 6 hours.
The diagram above, adapted from Slade, shows the tracks of Hurricane Joaquin and the El Faro. The straight dotted line shows the usual Jacksonville – San Juan route. Captain Davidson steered the El Faro to the west, apparently hoping the small island of San Salvador would provide some protection from the storm.
The Coast Guard
Slade does an excellent job in describing the Coast Guard’s rescue efforts. That they were unsuccessful is no reflection on the courage and professionalism they displayed.
The National Transportation Safety Board
The NTSB investigates transportation accidents involving the loss of life. When available, voice recorders provide important information. However, the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) was still with the El Faro, somewhere on the bottom of the sea.
Slade does an excellent job of describing the recovery efforts. It took three voyages, with specialized submersibles, to finally bring the VDR to the surface. The El Faro was in deep water, about 15,000 feet. She had broken apart, and her cargo – cars, trailers, containers – was strewn over the bottom of the ocean. Click here to see a video of El Faro captured by one of the submersibles.
Once recovered, the VDR provided useful information. NTSB analysts listed to 26 hours of conversation picked up microphones on the bridge. They were able to identify voices and, for example, learned of the concerns of some of the junior officers as to the course they were steering. These conversations are an integral part of Slade’s story.
The NTSB also conducted formal hearings. Slade attended these, and her account of the ttestimony of the TOTE executives is scathing. They noted again and again that the Captain, and the Captain alone, had complete authority to alter course to avoid foul weather. They did not, however, acknowledge the pressure Captain Davidson was under to bring the ship in on schedule. Nor did they acknowledge the awkward situation he was in, in wondering whether he would get command of the ship destined to replace the El Faro. Rather, the executives’ testimony showed an organization with unclear responsibilities and decision making authority. Click here to see a video of El Faro’s last voyage created by the NTSB. The video describes facts as determined by the NTSB, and makes no judgments. Those are left to the final, written report. If you want to see that, all 300 pages, click here. I found the first part, a narrative describing the sequence of events, most interesting. The report uses conversations picked up the VDR as part of the narrative. The voices are described as First Mate, Able Bodied Seaman, etc. Slade provides background on the voices and introduces you to some of the doomed crew.
Summary
Captain Davidson inexplicably sailed the El Faro into a Category 3 hurricane. Consequently, the ship sank taking 33 lives with it. Slade’s account is far- ranging and compelling. Highly recommended.
