For you who have not been following my WC blog...here is my post re: the Star Ferry incident on departing Hong Kong. I also have posted 4 photos taken from Deck 12:


Mar 12 – Day 58 – Hong Kong (Part 2; Disaster Averted))

We pulled back from the Ocean Terminal on time; right about 5:00 p.m. Capt. Dag gave a few long blasts on our deep horn. He started forward, passing the busy Star Ferry terminal on our port (or left side). What happened next could have been disastrous.

A ferry was pulling out of the terminal going towards HK Island and apparently thought he could pass in front of us. When he saw he could not, he did a U-turn. In spinning around he almost passed from sight under our bow (as my photos show). Capt. Dag threw us into reverse and used our bow thrusters for a starboard turn.

I was quite sure that we were going to hit the ferry very hard. Luckily he missed the large bulb that protrudes under water at our bow. Once we separated, you could see that the closest signals mast of the ferry was canted to the side. It apparently scraped our bow.

We continued on for a bit out of the main harbor and then stopped out where some of the old gambling cruise ships anchor. We stayed there for about 2-1/2 hours with two harbor boats from the marine authorities close by. Some of those folks visited the Voyager and the boats circled to see if there was any damage and ensure we were seaworthy.

Capt .Dag told us the next day during two comments on the incident, that Voyager did in fact have a small 4” scrape on the bow, about 4-5 meters above the water line. He referred to it as no more than a lady scraping her nail polish.

He said that our Chinese harbor pilot had cleared us for our direction and slow speed. He also said that pilots of small vessels sometimes try to see how close they can come in front of larger ships. He didn’t know if that is what the ferry captain was doing or if for some unknown reason was he not paying attention and didn’t see us?

Capt. Dag was emphatic that the international rules are very clear: That when ship paths merge the ship to the starboard (the Voyager in this case) has the right of way. Later he said that if the ferry pilot had continued to cross our path he probably would have been fine. But halfway across our bow he panicked and did a U-turn to starboard. Dag threw us into reverse and used full starboard thrusters. Thus we ended up basically parallel to each other.

He maintains that it looked more precarious than it actually was, primarily due to our slow, 4-knot speed.

We are so thankful that apparently everything turned out OK and no one was hurt.