The Chart Had a Gap, and So Did the Passage Plan: The Meshka Grounding

First Transit, Missing Chart Cells, Three Metres of Water

On 31 May 2025, the bulk carrier Meshka was in ballast, southbound through the Öresund on a passage from Tarragona, Spain, to Vysotsk, Russia. The Sound is narrow, busy, and unforgiving of small navigation errors. It was the first time this vessel, and this crew, had transited it. Just before 10:00, the Swedish Maritime Administration's traffic centre noticed Meshka drifting outside the designated shipping lane and issued a warning. The ship continued off-course and grounded in water only three metres deep — on a vessel with a seven-metre draft.

What SHK Found

The investigation traced the grounding to inadequate voyage planning, compounded by a specific and avoidable gap: the vessel's ECDIS lacked detailed chart cells for the Öresund. That alone should have been caught during passage planning or chart ordering. It wasn't. Investigators also found insufficient crew knowledge of the ECDIS system's limitations, poor adherence to navigation procedures, and deficient bridge teamwork — meaning even as the vessel began drifting off track, no one on the bridge caught it in time. SOUNDREP, the Sound's ship reporting system, did try to intervene, but the warning came too late to prevent the grounding.

Behind the immediate navigational failure, SHK identified underlying causes in the company's implementation of its Safety Management System, and shortcomings in how charts were ordered in the first place. This wasn't a single bridge team having a bad morning — it was a chain that started in the office, with what got put on board before the vessel ever left port.

The Cost — and What Was Avoided

Meshka was refloated on 7 June after ballast discharge and towing, with no substantial damage to the vessel and no pollution detected, despite carrying roughly 938,000 litres of oil in its fuel and lubricating tanks. It was, in the end, a grounding without a disaster attached to it. That outcome depended on shallow, forgiving ground and a fast, well-executed salvage — not on anything the bridge team did right.

What This Means for Any Bridge Team on an Unfamiliar Passage

• Chart coverage is not something to assume — verify ECDIS chart cells cover the full intended route, in detail, before departure, especially in narrow or high-traffic waters
• A first transit of any strait, sound, or narrow channel is exactly when passage planning needs the most scrutiny, not the least
• Know your ECDIS's specific limitations — a system that looks fully functional can still be missing the detail that matters most in confined waters
• Bridge teamwork means someone is independently cross-checking the vessel's actual track against the planned one — not just monitoring the same display the OOW is watching
• An external warning, like a traffic centre call, is a last line of defence, not a first one — by the time it arrives, options are already narrowing

Related Reading

• GPS and ECDIS Overreliance — when the technology becomes the blind spot
• Six Minutes, One Assumption, Five Lives — another bridge team that didn't catch a developing situation in time
• Commodore Goodwill — inadequate lookout and small, late course alterations