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.
On my way out of the country the other day I observed the above Liverpool & Scotland football great Alan Hansen. I was not going to make a gobshite of myself and ask him if I could take his photograph but a divil inside of me spoke up ” can I take your photo” at the same time the other thought was circulating. He said “sure” in that distinctive accent so well known from the BBC, I even complimented him on his youthful looks, then turn on my heel and away I went.
He was able to move around quite freely in the public area without any hassle apart from me and a few other men of my age group around the 40 bracket, who commented something to him. He took it all in his stride, fair play to him. I expect that Dublin airport with the very high number of foreigners both working and travelling is the ideal place to go unnoticed with the obvious exception of tours truly!
Published May 3, 2007
in accident, Anchor Handler, Bourbon Dolphin, Sinking, UK, sunk, Norway, wrecks, capsize, Scotland and Shipping.
The Scandinavian Shipping Gazette reports that the AHT Bourbon Dolphin will not be salvaged because of the extreme depth at which she lies and due to the fact that the area can be subject to heavy seas and weather further restricting any salvage attempt. It also points out that the deepest ship salvage ever done was at a depth of 600 metres, Bourbon Dolphin lies at over 1000 metres.
The website Maritime Digital Portal talks about goods salvaged from a depth of 10,000 feet, which is 3000 metres , not quite the same thing but camera and robot technology is available.
The MAIB Marine Accident Investigation Branch of the UK Department for Transport has no mention of the accident on its investigation page. I would have thought that it would come under its jurisdiction.
Bourbon will be conducting it’s own investigation into the tragic accident, to find out why Bourbon Dolphin had the specific tasks she had that day.
Transocean Rathers owners are not making any statements but are waiting for the Norwegian Police and Ministry of Justice investigation. The same goes for Highland Valour.
I wrote a Post the other day about Independence for Scotland, and today to my delight there was a report item on Sky News about how English people who were polled support the idea of Independence for Scotland.
56% in England said they thought it was time to break up the Union
41% of Scots were in favour of independence.
If the SNP get a majority in the elections they plan to hold a referendum on the issue.
Will the UK flag look like this in the future?
Of course the level of interest in Scottish independence must raise the issue of the total dissolution of the Act of Union, it becomes irrelevant, and thus does the status of Northern Ireland, which will be hard pushed to exist on its own, so maybe the prospect of a re union with the rest of it’s geographical and cultural island can take place, of course this will have to be done with full consent from all parties, and some sort of federal or Irish act of Union will have to take place perhaps, a new name even…..like the United Island of Ireland?
After browsing the Norwegian newspaper sites I have made a brief account of the court hearing in Ålesund Norway 25th April about the capsize of the Bourbon Dolphin.
The court heard from several witnesses including the off duty Master and one of the Officers who was rescued from the scene. Geir Syversen (32) described how the sequence of events started when another vessel the Highland Valour failed to retrieve the heavy anchor cable from the Bourbon Dolphin which was apparently too small for the job. The Highland Valour during seven attempts to take the chain caught it twice but dropped it both times, increasing the strain on the Bourbon Dolphin.
There was also a near collision between the two vessels which meant that the Bourbon Dolphin had to go full ahead on her engines to avoid a collision, calling into question the seamanship and shiphandling of the Highland Valour.
Then the Valour pushed the Dolphin in the wrong direction and the Dolphin was pushed out of position which meant that her bow thruster got overheated and the Chief Engineer asked him to reduce the load on the thruster.
The Domino effect was in full swing and problems stared mounting for the Bourbon Dolphin, when the Master decided that emergency measures were required, he asked the Chief Officer to use the quick release system to get rid of the anchor chain, but it was not so quick and by then the Chief Engineer called up to say that the engines had stopped.
By this stage hope was out for the ship and it had listed over on its side 90 degrees port side down.
Some of the crew managed to get off before she turned completely around. Then the survivors managed to climb into a raft and others were plucked out of the water.
The Master and his 14 year old son were among 8 crew lost in the accident.
The Norwegian Goverment has set up a Committee to investigate further into the accident.
Norwegian Maritime Directorate
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