One might be forgiven for believing that controllable pitch propeller systems are the illegitimate children of HAL, from the science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a dangerously psychotic mindset all their own. Take the grounding of the Cyprus-flagged MV Merita at Steubenhöft in Cuxhaven.
Germany’s Bundesstelle für Seeunfalluntersuchung, Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation, tells the tale of a disobedient vessel caused by the failure of a worn coupling in the wrong time and place: