Word: valdez
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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What happened after that remains fuzzy. The ship's log shows the vessel passing Busby Island at 11:55 p.m., when Cousins told Hazelwood by phone that he was starting to turn. But the ship's course recorder shows that the Valdez did not start to change direction until seven minutes later. Next, the lookout on duty ran into the ship's pilothouse to report that a flashing red buoy near Bligh Reef, which should have been visible on the port (left) side, had been spotted on the starboard (right) side...
...Valdez was not responding well to Cousins' order to turn. One reason may be that the helmsman, Robert Kagan, feeling that the Valdez was turning too sharply back toward the outbound lanes, used a counter-rudder maneuver to slow the swing. Initially, Kagan acknowledged making such a maneuver, but he has since retracted the statement in Government hearings. A counter-rudder maneuver, however, is registered in the ship's course recorder. Whatever the reason for the ship's unresponsiveness, Cousins repeated the order and then followed it with another command for a hard-right rudder...
Coast Guard investigator Mark Delozier, who climbed aboard the Valdez more than three hours after the accident, says he found a "very intense" smell of alcohol on Hazelwood's breath. But Delozier also says Hazelwood did not appear intoxicated or impaired. "He was very professional," he says. "He didn't appear to be at a loss of any capabilities." No one who was aboard the Valdez has contradicted Delozier...
...exceeded two miles, pilotage endorsements were no longer mandatory after a vessel passed a certain point in the sound. But the point at which the new rule applied is unclear. The Coast Guard argues that only certified officers could command ships down to the Bligh Reef area, where the Valdez ran aground. Hazelwood's attorneys insist that the point of freedom was the established pilot station at Rocky Point, some seven miles north of the reef. Hazelwood's position appears to be bolstered by a 1986 memo from Alaska Maritime Agencies, a Valdez shipping agency that serviced Exxon. That memo...
Another question is why the Coast Guard did not monitor the Valdez after it veered outside normal shipping lanes. Following the last radio transmission by Hazelwood, the Coast Guard did not communicate with the Valdez until after the grounding, nearly an hour later. Nor did it track the tanker by radar. The Coast Guard has cited possible weather conditions, poor equipment and the change-of-shift preoccupations of a watchman to explain why the ship was not picked up on radar. More important, although seamen insist they rely heavily on Coast Guard monitoring in the entire sound, Coast Guard officials...