SAINT SIFFREIN: When the Controls Fail Mid-Turn, What You Do Next Is What Counts

Île Saint-Honorat, 23 October 2012 — 14:25

SAINT SIFFREIN, a 23.2m aluminium passenger vessel, was on her fifth crossing of the day between Cannes and the Îles de Lérins, this run carrying 49 passengers. Her captain, a woman with a Capitaine 200 certificate since 2009 and command experience on this route since 2010, was bringing the vessel alongside the island jetty — a routine approach she'd made many times before.

What Happened

Running in on her way at about 4 knots, engines in neutral, the captain transferred engine control to the starboard wing station — the console lit to confirm the transfer had taken. She put the engines ahead to tighten the turn into the berth. Nothing happened. She tried astern — nothing. With the vessel still swinging and closing on the rocks, she put the helm hard over using the wing station's emergency tiller control. It wasn't enough: SAINT SIFFREIN struck the rocks bow-first at an estimated 3–4 knots and came to rest aground by the bow.

What she did in the next ten minutes is the reason this incident is worth studying at all. She immediately had the crew check every passenger for injury and confirm there was no flooding. Finding none, she transferred control back to the main wheelhouse, worked the vessel clear using the port engine alone — the starboard engine had stopped at the moment of impact and wouldn't restart — and got the vessel alongside safely, informing the shore station Cannes Sécurité by VHF throughout. Twenty passengers, including seven children, suffered minor injuries; none were serious. One crew member was hurt helping with mooring and needed a short evacuation. A helicopter and multiple rescue boats responded and the situation was fully resolved within about two hours.

What the Investigation Found

The most likely explanation: the captain probably struck the starboard engine's emergency stop button by accident during the impact, which is why it wouldn't restart — not a mechanical failure in itself, but exactly the kind of thing an unprotected emergency-stop button lets happen in a moment of chaos. The wing-station control fault itself couldn't be reproduced by the manufacturer's own testing and never recurred. Separately, BEAmer noted the vessel's crewing certificate hadn't been settled since a temporary one was issued during her original delivery voyage months earlier — an administrative loose end, not a cause of the grounding itself.