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Hand Over Control, Check the Lever: Eight Cases Where the Ship Did Something the Bridge Did Not Intend

🕑 5 min read words Navigation • Safety • Bridge-resource-management

Sources: Gard, Loss of bridge control in functioning systems (part 2, 5 October 2026); UK MAIB safety flyer on KIRKELLA and SHOVETTE (as summarised in IMCA Safety Flash SF 18/24); IMCA DP Event bulletins DPE 03/18 and 03/26
The point: bridge control is often lost with every system working, because of a setting, a transfer or a mode that was not what the crew thought
Relevant to: Masters, OOWs, Chief Officers, Chief Engineers, ETOs, DP Operators

Control Lost With Nothing Broken

Gard’s series on loss of bridge control began with steering failures from mechanical or electrical faults. Its second article looks at the other kind: the equipment works, and the ship still does something the crew did not intend. A control is handed to another station and the settings do not match. A mode selector is in the wrong place. A light that looks like ‘active’ means only ‘available’. In each case the crew has minutes or seconds to work out what has happened, and what they try can make it worse.

The Berthing That Went Wrong: KIRKELLA

The fishing vessel KIRKELLA was berthing in Hull, in the UK, when she lost propulsion control and collided with the harbour tug SHOVETTE. The tug partly sank and about 7,000 litres of marine diesel spilled into the dock. KIRKELLA was not damaged and nobody was injured.

Control had been passed from the bridge to the engine control room with the clutch engaged. The bridge pitch lever was at zero. The ECR pitch lever was at 100% ahead. When the ECR accepted control, the pitch advanced automatically and the vessel moved forward against the berth.

The MAIB found that the levers were not synchronised during the handover, that the system had no interlock to prevent the mismatch (an optional feature, so not required), that the engineer did not check the ECR pitch matched the bridge, and that there was no written changeover procedure. Its advice: interlocks can be retrofitted; documented procedures should require both the sending and receiving stations to confirm the settings match, whether or not interlocks are fitted; and declutching before a transfer reduces the chance of thrust being applied unintentionally alongside.

Seven More, From Gard

Gard describes seven cases without naming the ships. In summary:

Case	What happened	The hidden state
Full ahead alongside	A fishing vessel’s engine-room pitch lever was left at full ahead after a control transfer; she broke her moorings and hit another ship.	The handover was accepted without checking the lever. No documented procedure and no interlock.
Unintended transfer of steering	A naval vessel overtaking a merchant ship veered into it, with multiple deaths. Moving thrust control also moved steering.	Thrust became un-ganged. The team did not notice the mismatch and misunderstood what the emergency override would do. Four minutes from transfer to collision.
Steering motor switched off	The OOW switched off one of two running steering gear motors at about 10 knots with a faster ship nearby; the vessels collided within minutes.	A change made in busy water with the Master off the bridge.
Joystick not in control	The master took over at a bridge wing joystick, but the wheelhouse mode selector was still on manual, so his thrust increases raised speed instead of creating astern thrust.	Four of five transfer steps skipped; a panel light showed ‘can be activated’, not ‘active’.
Autopilot approaching a reef	On a naval research vessel with azimuth propulsion, the OOW engaged autopilot, then tried to turn using thruster controls that did nothing. The vessel grounded about 12 minutes later.	The crew blamed a thruster failure and did not follow the bridge card; full astern increased speed.
Autopilot turned 34 degrees	A ferry with a new steering system grounded after autopilot started a 34-degree turn instead of 3 degrees; manual takeover failed.	The takeover button had to be held for about 5 seconds and the rudder commands to align within 2 degrees. Neither master knew.
Steering gear misconfigured	After a port state control test a bypass valve was probably left open; the ship steered erratically above about 8 knots and hit a beacon in a narrow channel.	Confusion about normal and emergency operation.

The Same Pattern On A DP Console

The IMCA DP bulletins show the same thing. In DPE 03/18 a DPO left auto DP after a thruster failed; the setpoints for the released axes dropped to zero and the vessel lost position and touched a platform. In another DPE 03/18 event a switch to independent joystick in worsening weather zeroed the released axes about 120 m from a turbine, and the vessel hit the transition piece. In DPE 03/26 a Backup Mode selector beside the Alarm Acknowledge button took all thrusters off the DP station with no alarm. See eight times a DP console did what the operator did not mean.

What Gard Says To Do

Confirm the active station and mode, and check the controls respond before you commit to a manoeuvre.
Treat every control transfer as a critical step: activation, acceptance and synchronisation, all of it.
Avoid making changes in confined or congested water.
Practise recovery on the installed system, and retrain whenever equipment changes, even for experienced crews.
Test, practise and document how integrated critical control systems interact.

A Control Transfer Check

Our own summary, drawn from the cases above rather than from any regulation. Say it aloud, between the two stations:

Who has control now, and which station am I handing it to?
Read the levers and the mode selector at both stations. Do they match?
Is the clutch engaged or declutched?
Does the indicator mean ‘active’ or only ‘available’?
What happens if the transfer goes wrong, and what is my recovery action?
Does it have to happen now, in this water?

Try the Decision Simulator

Take the KIRKELLA berthing as the Master: the changeover procedure, the interlock question, the standing order, the walk-through and the moment the engine room says ‘you have control’. Work through it in the free Decision Simulator. It is a training reconstruction.

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