The El Faro’s Captain had “full faith” in a weather tool that sent outdated information ahead of the ship’s sinking.
During the first week of testimony at the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, representatives with Applied Weather Technology told the Board there was a one-time anomaly with their BonVoyage System in the hours ahead of the sinking. That glitch resulted in the system on the El Faro getting an old storm track for Hurricane Joaquin.
Tuesday, a former Chief Mate on El Faro told investigators he believed BVS was El Faro Captain Michael Davidson’s “primary resource” for weather on board.
“For storm avoidance purposes, the most critical information that a deck officer can have is accurate weather data, correct?” questioned Bill Bennett, who’s the attorney for Davidson’s widow
”I would say for voyage planning and routing, yes,” responded Captain Kevin Stith, the current Master on the Perla Del Caribe.
Stith was the Master on El Faro’s sister ship, El Yunque, at the time El Faro sank. He was actually making the reverse route, traveling from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Jacksonville, at the time El Faro was doing the southern route.
Stith says he emailed with El Faro's Captain, Michael Davidson, after realizing the forecasting for Joaquin wasn't behaving as they expected. He sped up the El Yunque to get past the storm, but wanted to see how Davidson was handling his route.
Davidson emailed back that he had slightly altered his route, and was expecting to stay at least 65 nautical miles from the closest approach of the storm. Stith then told Davidson about a 100 knot relative wind gust he had picked up from Joaquin, but says he ultimately had confidence in Davidson's planning.
“I felt if he had a solid plan, that it was well thought out and he had considered everything, I thought that if he had a plan, it was appropriate,” Stith says.
A short time before emailing with Davidson, Stith had actually spoken over VHF radio with a Chief Mate on El Faro. One of his crew was on the radio with the ship when he entered the bridge, and Stith called back, telling investigators he wanted to thank the Chief Mate for everything he had done to help in his training. He says they spoke about Facebook photos, plans for the future, and other topics, with no mention of weather at that time.
He says he was shocked when he heard from TOTE that they had lost contact with El Faro. He then tried to use shipboard systems to try to get in touch with the ship.
“They [TOTE] asked me if I could do it again, and to continue to do that for as often as physically possible until I heard anything, so I continued to try. Myself and the Second Mate were on the bridge for a long time trying to make contact with them,” he says.
They weren’t able to actually get in touch with the vessel.
Stith says, while he was on El Faro in August, they did get a special tropical weather update through the BonVoyage System. Applied Weather Technology told investigators last week that El Faro did not get those updates on the final voyage.
He was also on El Faro when the ship tried to avoid Erika in August by taking a different route. Stith says Davidson made sure every crew member was aware of the weather, but there was no special lashing or ship prep to correlate with that. He felt the crew was well trained and prepared, and told the Board he felt lucky to have trained with them on his path to becoming a Master for TOTE.
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