Thanks to Mark from Cork for the inspiration for this one, a spoof interview about a tanker accident in the 90’s, the accident really happened. It was a Greek tanker called the Kirki. Here is a link to the actual story from AMSA http://www.amsa.gov.au/Marine_Environment_Protection/Major_Oil_Spills_in_Australia/Kirki/index.asp
Archive for the 'accident' Category
I’m the one in the lovely orange suit, the deck cadet is in blue, he is the computer expert and it’d his fault I got into wordpress, however he was not the one complaining about the wireless internet. Anyway, we are rigging the gangway in anticipation of a visit from a couple of service engineers, and they do arrive by chopper and can be seen below. The engine started to act the bollix so we had to stop, and seeing as how the Baltic was frozen solid it was just a matter of turning the engine off and the ship parks itself. So two chaps from Rolls-Royce came to fix our problem, and they did it in no time and we up and running again. Of course Rolls-Royce make all sorts of stuff from jet engines to deck winches and luxury cars, but that division is small in the grand RR scheme of things.
I once sailed with an engineer who had worked as an apprentice with RR in Scotland, he was making a tool on the lathe and the metal was glowing white hot, when a tiny bit flew off and hit his overalls square in the groin area and burned through like a hot knife in butter, he told us that he felt a sudden extreme pain in his penis as the metal had burned all the way to the skin and left a pinhole scar at the top of the “helmet” area. He was going to show us the scar but we took his word, he was too eager to whip out the evidence so to speak for it to be a make belief story and who would make that kind of stuff up. His wife left him, and he needed consolation so he came to Cork and went on the hit and miss, I met him one night in a pub on the Coal Quay, Dennehy’s Pub to be precise, he went off to the jacks after a while and there was a fierce commotion, he had gone into the ladies, I immediately thought he wanted to show off the scar tissue, but the reason was more simple, Dennehy’s has the toilet names as gaeilge so he figures Fir was F for female and Mná was M for male, wrong. Innocent mistake for a Jock to make I suppose.
A container crane crashing down onto the deck of a containership at Southampton dock the other day, I don’t know exactly which day but the pilot on the way out from Southampton told me it was on Youtube so here it is. Amazingly the driver of the crane survived, apparently he wasn’t in the cab at the time, which is where they spend 99% of their time, so he was lucky. The crash has caused a logistical headache for the port ships are being diverted and it will take weeks to repair. Reasons for the accident, unknown at this time…….
Source: Security camera (via youtube) footage as far as I know.
Distant shot of the ship that was lying on it’s side in Antwerp taken through a lens of a binoculars. She is in dock in Antwerp being repaired after her capsizing IMC has a detailed report. http://www.imcbrokers.com/blog/2007/11/19/repubblica-di-genova-towed-to-drydock/
I was tempted to get closer but that would have meant breaking and entering, trespassing and ISPS infringement, so cowardice being the better part of valour, I decided to stay on my bridge and use binoculars.
The Chief Officer from the Wilson Garston http://timstimes.net/2007/12/30/drunken-sailor/ that ran aground on Christmas Day received a prison sentence of 3 months for “grovsjöfylleri” as they say in Swedish. For being drunk in charge of a ship in other words. The 33 year old Russian officer was alone on the bridge at the time and was asleep due to the influence alcohol and medication. He had 0.89 per mg of alcohol in his blood, the law in Sweden states that 1,0 mg is “grovsjöfylleri” but in this case because he was asleep and the ship grounded he got that sentence.
Swedish links Sydsvenskan with photographs and here also Sydsvenskan which shows how the ship became a tourist attraction.
A tragic occurrence yesterday in the Baltic where 2 seafarers lost their lives and a third was badly injured in a lifeboat incident. They were apparently doing some maintenance on the boat when it released unexpectedly, the two deaths caused by injuries sustained in the fall. A report in English from the Swedish news site The Local (click here)
The Swedish police gave a statement saying that as the accident occurred in International waters they would not be carrying out an investigation. The flag state is Panama and the owner is in Switzerland. The accident will be most likely investigated by the Panamanian authorities according to their regulations (Click)
A search on “lifeboat deaths” or “lifeboat accidents” on Google spits up far too many cases where seafarers have died in drills, or during maintenance. I witnessed an accident myself as a cadet where an engineer and a deck officer were badly injured when a lifeboat released from one of the davitt arms and they fell heavily in the boat. Luckily for them none of the injuries were life threatening.
What is needed is a rethink of the design of lifeboats, a radical overhaul of the whole idea, where the lifeboat could be for example an entire deck that floats free. Something for the Naval architects and engineers to think about maybe, in the meantime routines for securing boats under drills and maintenance should be improved so that an accidental releases won’t mean accidental deaths.
The container vessel LT Cortesia (click on the name for more info about the ship)went aground on the Varne bank in the English Channel about 9 nautical miles from Dover Harbour yesterday. The British news was full of stories about a giant container ship aground, and that later it had been refloated, and there are plenty links on the net about the when and the where of the whole story. The big questions are the how and the why of the grounding, the Varne bank is not a concealed navigation hazard, anyone who has been up and down the English channel a few times knows about it and even if you had never been there before it is well charted and there is a great big red light on top of it that can be seen for miles around. It is possible to make all sorts of assumptions about what could have happened to cause the ship to steam onto a sand bank, like was the echo sounder on and the alarm set? was there sufficient position fixing? who had the conn and did everyone know this? was there a passage plan with parallel indexing and no go areas, did they know what the draught was in relation to the available depth of water? and so on and so on. The MAIB will in due course publish a report, until then it will be speculation all over the shop.
From the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/7167666.stm
On Christmas day the Wilson Garston ran aground outside Helsingborg in Sweden. The stretch of water between Helsingborg and Helsingör on the Danish side is thick with ferries back and forth between Sweden and Denmark, a place where the traffic heading North and South has to be on full concentration for any eventual manouvres that may be required to give way for a ferry and vice versa.
The mate on the bridge of the Wilson Garston was asleep due to the effects of alcohol, so the ship was running out of control in one of the busiest waterways in the region. Several ships tried in vain to make contact with the ship but to no avail, in the end he ran aground. Fortunately there was not much damage to the ship or the environment, the sleeping watchkeeper got a rude awakening and was arrested suspected for being drunk in charge of a ship, the court case to be held in a week, while he dries off in remand.
The consequences could have been disastrous but this case will go largely unnoticed because of the lack of damage, some Christmas present for the shipping company and the drunken sailor who is cooling his jets in a Swedish prison for the holidays.
It also casts a smear on the trade and gives the general public the image of jolly jack tar the drunkard, sad really because it is not the case.
As reported by Reuters via Youtube.
Last year when leaving the Elbe during Beaufort Force 6 to 7 wind conditions several of the type of tanker “Volgoneft” and other similar cargo ships were at anchor in a row, I asked the pilot about it he said that they have not got the power in their engines for this kind of weather. They didn’t have the stability either, so they had to wait it out for better weather. The ships in the Black Sea the other day had no chance. God rest the poor unfortunate sailors who died, and God help the families left behind.
About a month ago I did a post about the collision between the Doris and the fishing boat Skarbank, the Skarbank was cut in two by the force of the collision and the occupant lost, presumed dead. The Doris had no lookout at the time of the incident, that is not to say they were unaware of the risk of collision because a VHF conversation took place between the two vessels prior to the collision. The Captain and Chief Officer were on the bridge at the time, they are alleged to have said that the fishing boat was acting in a dangerous manner just prior to the collision.
Anyone who has ever seen how fishing boats behave at sea know that there movements can be erratic, especially when they are fishing, also power driven vessels have to keep clear of vessels engaged in fishing. Now all of us who are at sea know that fishing boats keep their fishing lights on next to all of the time, even when they are steaming for the home port at full speed. However when there is plenty sea room there is no excuse for getting close to a situation with any vessel let alone a fishing vessel. It is not some macho thing not to alter in time, it is stupidity.
On a similar topic I saw in the news that the wrecks of two trawlers lost at sea have been salvaged, one the Pere Charles sank on the 10th of January 2007 with the loss of 5 men and the other the Maggie B sank in March 29th 2006 with the loss of 2. Families of the men who were lost had petitioned the government to salvage the vessels. On the department of the Marines web page there is a statement from the minister about the retrieval of these vessels and a range of new safety measures for fishing vessels in the size 15 to 24 metres. There is also a link to the MCIB Marine Casualty Investigation Board, needless to say there are no reports for the 2 boats mentioned. The British version is known as the MAIB Marine Accident Investigation Branch no guesses for where the Irish get their inspiration. Reports are available at both sites for previous investigations.
Recent Comments