Things to do while studying for an exam, and to try and maintain some attempt at fooling myself that this is relevant, I happen to find an interesting story about two ships that bumped into each other about 5 years ago in the Arabian Sea near Fujairah U.A.E.
Have a look at the photos, and I will write some more further down about collision avoidance and the “Rules” or more formally the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.
From a quick glance at the pictures it looks like the Stena King has planted itself in the shell plating of the British Vigilance, and thats fairly well what happened. But it should not have happened and furthermore it could have been a mega oil spill as the Stena King was loaded at the time with 450,000 tonnes of Saudi Crude. Fortunately there was no spill and the event has been largely forgotten about.
I found the official report from the Isle of Man government website about the collision today and decided that it could do with a new airing in blogland.
Firstly a bit of Rules, the basic rule is don’t hit anything or anyone, don’t go aground and for the love of God don’t spill anything in the water because the cameras love it and the greens go apeshit.
But seriously folks, when 2 ships are on a collision course and one is on the starboard side of the other, then you give way to the ship on the starboard side, usually by giving a large alteration of course to starboard and allowing our friend to starboard to go ahead of you. You may also slow down or a combination is also allowed.
If however you find yourself to starboard and your friend who should be giving way is not giving way then, when that becomes apparent to you, you should alter usually to starboard also to avoid a collision or close quarters situation.
In the above situation the British Vigilance a VLCC was on the starboard side of the Stena King a ULCC, the King should have given way but apparently did not at which point the Vigilance should have taken action but was caught with pants down, expecting the King to go first waited too long and the rest is a job for welders.
The official report from the Manx government goes into long detail and quotes rules, the Vigilance was a Manx flagged vessel, the Stena King or her representatives made no submissions to that report, different flag state Bermuda and maybe other reasons?
Here are a few more links from the time,
Smit the salvage company did a bit of work on the King.
Numast Union paper now called Nautilus.
Concordia Maritime website operators of the Stena King at the time in Swedish.
Neither ship is trading today for their respective companies.
AWESOME!!!
It is nearly unbelievable, but it really happened! Thanks for stopping by!
I was on the Vigilance when this happened! I was 2nd engineer. Not much fun!
Since moved oinwards and upwards.
Hi Michael and thanks for the comment from a genuine witness! I left BP myself not long before this incident, got as far as 2/o then packed it in the trips were too long and the missus and I decided enough was enough.
Cheers Tim.
Hi,
I sailed on the stena King and Queen years ago. Through my apprentice-ship and as 4th and 3rd engineed. This was after my time, but it is a shame to see the old girl in this state.
Allan
I was Electro Technical Officer on the Vigilance, what a ride that was even better going into dry-dock, left the company now done a stint on the rigs now shore-side again!!
I was a Deck Cadet on the sister ship Stena Queen in 92. What a job. Spent most of my 4 months down in the pumproom sweating my ass off doing the Swedish pumpmans job (Stena could not afford their overtime apparently so was a perfect ship for deck cadets!)
The time spent on a ULCC put me off tankers for the rest of my life. Having said that I do spend an awful lot of my time on them now as I am a Southampton Pilot!