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Last Resort

Published August 4, 2007 in Tankers, UAE, VLCC and From the ship. 0 Comments

The bar on the Resource was called “The Last Resort”, I spent two trips on this giant VLCC, both memorable for different reasons but all good memories none the less. The above photo is pre-digital from the archives and taken circa 1997 at Dubai Dry Dock when she was given a face lift and had a few hundred tonnes of steel replaced. She won the safety award for that year also, much to the disappointment of all the LNG ships in the fleet who thought they had such an easy ride in that department. These days the above collection of steel plates are razor blades as they say in the trade.
She was built in 1975, and was mothballed for 5 years from ‘76 till ‘81 when she was rebuilt in the engine room with a diesel engine having originally had a steam turbine plant. The ship was a bit of a freak, with all the old steam ancillaries and the big boilers from the old steam plant with this huge diesel in the middle of everything. The temperatures in the Gulf in the summer went up to 60C in the pit, and the double crew of diesel rats and steam queens giving each other hell. She had 2 of everything bar Captain and Chief Engineer.
When I was there she had Sierra Leone crew, Polish fitters, Canadian, Irish, Polish and British officers all told 44 compliment.

She was a big old beast as can be seen from the below photo, note the draft marks on the stern, and the boys on the scaffolding around the rudder, large dimensions we speak about here.

This 270,000 tonner was demolished in the year 2000, 25 years after being built. I have a T-shirt that says “British Resource RIP, Rust in Peace 25th Anniversary The Last Resort”

Stena King & British Vigilance Collision

Published April 11, 2007 in UK, accident, Estonia, collision, UAE, VLCC, ULCC and On the ship. 7 Comments

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.