Experience, not calculations, drove El Faro's cargo lashing scheme on final departure

Crew instincts, not calculations, drove the amount of lashings put on cargo- according to the man who led the team ahead of El Faro’s final departure.

PORTUS Stevedore Securing Team Lead Randy Kidd- who is now a Topman for PORTUS- was in charge of the crews lashing all the roll-on roll-off cargo on El Faro.  He told the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation probing the ship's sinking that he had never been exposed to training tools, diagrams, written procedures and policies, or anything like that- including El Faro's cargo loading manual and securing manual.  Calling the work physical, but not complicated, Kidd says lashers need to have a good handle after a few days by learning on the job.

The arrangement of the cargo itself- what was loaded in what location and in what orientation- is based on stability calculations, including the use of a software called CargoMax. It's how the cargo itself is secured that has been left to the ways Kidd and his crew learned.

Kidd was also never approached by anyone who determined unusual cargo needed additional lashings for stability purposes. He says his crew would assess the lashing scheme and, if they felt it was necessary, would add more, but their call wasn't based on any calculations. The ship's crew would also ask for additional lashing at times- specifically for weather- but that didn't happen on the last voyage, according to Kidd.

“I actually remember that that was a very smooth day, that there were no issues,” he says.

In another area without specific guidelines- Kidd says he never saw any testing of how tight the lashing was. His only instruction was to get them as tight as he and his crews could.

“When they were checking the chains, a lot of times they would just kick ‘em and if they basically kicked you back, then it was tight enough,” he says.

He walked investigators through hold-by-hold to talk about the lashing schemes, including how many lashings, what type were used and more. He confirmed prior testimony that, on the ship’s second deck, it was hard to land “on the button”- which is a cargo securing mechanism built in to the deck. Any trailers that didn’t make it on a button got extra chains, according to Kidd. He says that was the case for as much as 60% of the cargo on that deck, on average.

The equipment on El Faro was sometimes rusted, with Kidd saying there were d-rings they couldn't use because they couldn't be lifted.

“The boats looked their age on the inside, I don’t know how else to put it,” he says.

If they ever came across a broken lashing, Kidd says he would tell a ship crew member, who would then mark the lashing and put it off to the side. While they were marked, Kidd says he would see the broken lashing still on board, sometimes for weeks.

In all, while the days were long and labor intensive, Kidd has confidence in the work they did- saying he only had two or three instances of their lashing getting a little loose in the several years he's done this job.

“There’s always a sense of urgency on ro-ro on getting it done in a timely manner, but I don’t think that affected the job that we did. I had good lashers, and I would never leave that boat until I knew that the cargo was perfectly lashed down and ready to go,” he says.

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