In June 2000 the 730 foot long Great Lakes bulk carrier ship Algowood was loading a cargo of crushed stone at the port of Bruce Mines in Ontario Canada.
A series of mistakes were made regarding the complicated sequence in which the holds should have been loaded and ballast tanks pumped to compensate for stresses. As a result, the ship “hogged”, which means the bow and stern bent down more than the center section, by probably more than a foot (all big ships hog, but it went beyond acceptable limits.) This led to tremendous stresses on the hull, causing it to buckle and crack near the middle, and the ship sank at the dock. It was later raised, temporarily repaired and towed to a drydock where it was permanently repaired at a cost or more the $5 million and put back in service (and is still sailing today).
So where does a flashlight come into play? There was supposed to be a fail-safe procedure in place to prevent the ultimate failure, but it relied on someone having a good flashlight, which apparently they didn’t.
Anyone who has been around big ships knows they have load/Plimsoll lines painted on their sides to indicate low high/low they are riding in the water, and their maximum permissible loaded depth. On Great lakes bulk carriers they have three sets, bow, mid-section and stern. As a ship is being loaded, someone is responsible for reading these lines to insure they remain withing acceptable limits of hogging/bending because as cargo is loaded in a ship it sinks lower in the water. If anyone/everyone on the ship and operating the loading equipment screws up any part of the very complex loading plan and causes the ship to hog/bend excessively, this can easily be seen by someone reading the lines, and they can call an immediate halt to loading. Since ships usually operate 24/7, loading/unloading often happens at night, in which case a flashlight may be needed to read the lines.
As the Algowood was being loaded according to what was later revealed to be a flawed loading plan, someone onboard ordered an even worse deviation to that plan. IF however, whoever on shore tasked with reading the load lines had been able to see them, they could have called a halt to the process before the ship broke, BUT, it was night, and weather conditions deteriorated to the point that whatever flashlight they had was not up to the job and they couldn’t see the growing difference in the lines and impending disaster.
So, spending a few bucks more for a better flashlight might have saved $5 million bucks (Canadian).
The complete incident report is here: http://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/marine/2000/m00c0026/m00c0026.pdf