VDR

 As of 1 July 2010, almost all passenger ships and cargo ships of 3,000 gross tons and greater engaged on international voyages will have installed a voyage data recorder (VDR) or a simplified voyage data recorder (S-VDR), as appropriate.  These devices make automatic recordings of a variety of vital navigational and operational parameters, including, but not limited to: date & time; ship’s position; speed; heading; bridge audio; communications audio; radar data; echo sounder; main alarms; rudder order & response; engine order & response; hull openings status; and watertight & fire door status.  The VDR is intended to serve the same purpose for a ship that a so-called “black box” serves on an airplane, namely to improve accident reconstruction.  Though not as widely known or appreciated as the airplane black box, the VDR has lived up its billing.  For marine casualties involving ships with VDRs, much of the prior uncertainty encountered by investigators has been reduced.  Playing back the recordings, particularly if both vessels involved in a casualty are VDR-equipped, allows investigators to recreate most of what was happening in the minutes leading up to the casualty.  As the pilot on the Cosco Busan belatedly discovered, the VDR also records the conversations on the bridge as the situation developed – and the statements made by bridge personnel immediately after the casualty.  The true purpose of the VDR, though, is not to assign blame, but to better learn from casualties so that future maritime operations will be safer.  The marine community is already reaping the benefits of this unique device.   The earliest instance of a VDR being used in a marine casualty investigation, so far as I can determine, involved the grounding of the passenger ship Star Princess on Poundstone Rock in southeast Alaska on June 23, 1995.  I would appreciate it if a reader can point to a prior casualty in which a VDR was used in the investigation.