A 5,000-ton cargo ship crashed into a Scottish island while the officer on watch was ‘snoring loudly’ after a night of drinking, report finds (msn.com)

The Marmara a German owned vessel flying the Portuguese flag was peacefully sailing along when suddenly and without any provocation whatever, Scotland loomed in front of it, striking the bow with considerable force.

In a world where most cargo ships, the vast majority, in fact, manage to stay in shipping channels, avoid reefs and shallow water, this one ran directly into Scotland.

Many times discussing business ethics, you have to weigh the arguments for one side against those of the other side. In this case, three hours of drinking and then falling asleep at the wheel of a five thousand ton cargo ship must be weighed against Scottish unwillingness to move their nation. In my wise and seasoned judgment, the drunk helmsman is to blame. Not a difficult analysis.

According to news reports, the ship’s warning system went off fifteen times apparently indicating that Scotland was at hand. The crew drunk and happy slept on, and in consideration of their fellow crew men, should have slept on their sides because they were snoring loudly according to the ship’s black box recording of the ship’s abrupt arrival at the minor obstruction of a 30,414 square mile semi-independent nation.

I am very pleased that while the ship was seriously damaged, no lives were lost either on board or in Scotland. It does not take much reflection to conclude, that this could have been a much more serious tragedy but huge amounts of sheer luck were on the side of the ship (and Scotland).

James Pilant

The picture of Scotland above is from wikipedia and this is the attribute they asked me to copy. By Users Angusmclellan, Angusmclellan, Angusmclellan on en.wikipedia – Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is (was) here, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=714472

My sincere thanks to Wikipedia!!