27 Knots in a 10-Knot Harbour: What the Göcek Tender Collision Teaches Every Master About Authority You Don't Use

Göcek Harbour, Turkey — 27 July 2024

After a barbecue where some beer was consumed, the owner's representative proposed taking Isabell's tender to a restaurant reachable only by sea. Isabell's master prompted them to switch on navigation lights before departure, then accompanied as passenger while the owner's representative helmed. Within 30 seconds of clearing the yacht's bow, the tender had accelerated from 8 to roughly 28 knots — in a harbour with a 10-knot limit, published just three days earlier. Nearby, the RIB Vega was drifting with its engine and side lights off, showing only a single all-round white light. A nearby gulet flashed a light to warn the tender; the owner's representative altered course directly towards Vega instead of away from it, and struck it at approximately 27 knots. Vega's passenger, Gullu Torun Vasilev, 28, was trapped beneath the tender's hull and died despite the master jumping in to help free her.

The Authority That Was Never Used

Isabell's master held overriding authority under both the ISM Code and the company SMS — the formal power to stop or override any unsafe action on board, including by an owner or their representative. He did not exercise it as the tender accelerated well beyond a harbour speed limit published days earlier, at night, straight from a lit social setting into a helm seat. MAIB found this deference was likely because the owner's representative held a dual authority position — appointed senior captain by the company chair, and a co-signatory on the master's own letter of authority — making a challenge practically very difficult for a master on his first contract with the company. The company's SMS had never clearly defined the owner's representative's actual authority relative to the master's, leaving exactly the kind of structural ambiguity that makes challenge culture fail in practice, not just in theory.

Recommended Actions

1. Update the SMS to include a specific policy for tender use at night (action taken by Fraser Worldwide S.A.M.)
2. Amend letters of authority to clearly define the master's and the owner's representative's respective authority (action taken by IFZA Ltd)
3. Enforce navigation lights compliance for all harbour traffic via a published inspection regime (action taken by Göcek Port Authority)
4. Extend drug and alcohol policy explicitly to cover recreational tender use, not only bridge watchkeeping

Human Element Analysis