Famous sinkings

Perry,
Your link for Pamir is not working. Here the correct one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamir_(ship)

"....When the two halves of the Princess Alice were raised, hundreds of passengers were found piled near the exits....." eek: shivering...)


Cheers.

 

Thinking back to the spate of Ro-Ro-Ro tragedies (roll on roll off roll over) a few years ago, there was a lot of discussion about how to deal with water ingress on to the car deck. One suggestion being considered was having grating sections which would let the water fall into the bilges, where it would set off alarms and at least help to keep the vessel upright for longer. I know that a lot of attention is now paid to the visor and the inner door design, but I am not aware if the grating idea was ever accepted or rejected.

 

Too close for comfort! (Ferry Crash)

Sunday I took the 8:30AM Ferry from Shekou(China) where I live to Macau. THEN I heard that the night before, two of the Macau-Hong Kong ferries collided in the same area, injuring over 100 passengers. Ouch! Fortunately this didn't end up as a "Famous Sinking".. These are fast Turbo Hydrofoil boats carrying about 250 passengers.

One report:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=af2U2RwpRIoo&refer=asia

Ferries and Bad Weather: there's a subject! Has anyone here crewed on such a boat? Why weren't these boats immediately seen on their Radar at enough distance (Even at a closing speed of perhaps 80 knots) to avoid each other?

And with the GPS of today, well-defined inbound and outbound lanes seem very practical.

This is getting too personal to be an academic question!

 

That is a good concept. Shouldn't be too difficult to implement, either. To a traditionalist, the idea of introducing massive amounts of water into the bilges may be horrific, but then, to a traditionalist, the idea of the largest entranceway to the ship's interior being a huge door in the bow is horrific.

Ferries crossing open waters create unique problems. This would be a unique solution. Moving the huge weight and free surface effect of incoming water from the main deck to the bilge before it builds up above the waterline makes sense. Maybe add a pair of extra high capacity pumps for such emergencies? That part would be costly, but much less so than losing the ship and killing hundreds of people.

 

You're raising good points, Terry, and with literally millions of people embarking on open water ferries each year, it's definitely not academic! (I'm not excluding your personal interest, but building on it).

Ironically, as the Romans said 2 thousand years ago, Nil novi sub sole, there's nothing new under the sun. The report of this almost-tragedy sounds eerily like a high speed version of the Stockholm-Andrea Doria collision in 1956, just outside the entrance to New York Harbor. Here is a report of the sequence of events: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_andreadoria/clues.html

High tech navigational aids are excellent, and helpful, but in reality they are all just fancier tools. Safe passage is largely a function of good judgement by well trained, experienced bridge crews.

 

All to true. I my job I'm constantly fighting "screen fixation" where the crew is looking at one, and only one, screen rather than at all the other instruments or out the windows. IMHO, "do everything" units have given a false sense of control and safety....as the occasional pictures of vessels grounded/allided on/with daymarks will attest.

FWIW, Macau-Hong Kong is one of the busiest channels in the world, with lots of targets and clutter. Even if they had automated collision dectection, it was most likely turned off because of constant detections if the settings were at "useful" ranges. It would interesting to see if they had AIS and were using it.

 

"FWIW, Macau-Hong Kong is one of the busiest channels in the world, with lots of targets and clutter. Even if they had automated collision dectection, it was most likely turned off because of constant detections if the settings were at "useful" ranges. It would interesting to see if they had AIS and were using it."

This is also going to be the problem with AIS once implemented in the US and Canada.

And you are dead on right about the technowiz being a BIG part of the problem. With the advent of GPS and ACAS and TCAS the IMO has allowed shipping companies to go to minimum manned bridge crews. We used to have at least 1 officer and 2 deckhands on a bridge watch, now your lucky if you have one officer.

K9

 

"I my job I'm constantly fighting "screen fixation" where the crew is looking at one, and only one, screen rather than at all the other instruments or out the windows." jehardiman

"And you are dead on right about the technowiz being a BIG part of the problem. With the advent of GPS and ACAS and TCAS the IMO has allowed shipping companies to go to minimum manned bridge crews. We used to have at least 1 officer and 2 deckhands on a bridge watch, now your lucky if you have one officer." Kay9

Last July, an experienced professional charter boat captain ran his boat into the breakwater guarding his home port on Lake Michigan, at about 10:30 PM local time, injuring nearly all on board and wiping out the boat. According to the accident investigators' report, he was looking "very carefully" at his GPS screen at the moment of impact, "because the GPS and radar said we were very close to the harbor entrance."

Then there's this classic:

 

Hay, who put this cliff here?!?!?!?

Its obiious that the containership had the right of way as the cliff was definately showing its starboard light in the crossing situation....

 

Yep, back to the old mark one eyeball, sensible speed for prevalant weather conditions (which means that the accountants have to shut up!! If it's too foggy slow down NEVER mind what the boss says!) Use of ALL Nav AIDS (that's all this stuff is - Aids to Navigation) and most Importantly Experienced watchkeepers, as ALL the professionals have said - experience, experience, experience! ONLy the expereienced Officers have the 'guts' to do it properly; and even they 'chicken out' at times - ship owners (like all transport) have schedules and you MUST STICK with them - even if it kills you!! I know I spent fourteen months on fast ferries (short distance but still fast) - you don't get much time to think! So you must be right!

 

I like to browse this site occasionally.

http://www.cargolaw.com/gallery.html

Lots of "interesting" happenings.

 

Flying Enterprise

Just read the Book; Simple courage. It details the sinking of the freighter "Flying enterprise". She was owned by Hans Isbrandtsen and captained by Capt. Curt Carlsen; both Danish. Flying enterprise left Rotterdam around Christmas day 1951, and sailed out into the North Atlantic and ran straight onto a fierce storm that lasted for many days. About 400 mile out, a huge rouge wave slammed the ship and cracked her plates across the deck and down the sides. Temporary repairs were made and an attempt was made to continue on. one or two days later, another wave estimated at 60' tall slammed the freighter and laid her on her beam ends at about a 50 degree angle. Nearby ships came to the rescue and were able to take off passangers and crew. Captain Carlson remained aboard alone waiting for a salvage tug. When the tug arrived, unsuccessful attempts were made to secure the towing cable. The first mate of the tug Turmoil was able to transfer to the Enterpise and helped secure the towing cable. For 6 days , he and Captain Carlson stayedaboard as the ship was towed towards Falmouth England. 49 miles from shore, she parted the tow cable and efforts to resecure it failed. Finally, she rolled on her side took in more water and finally went down. Captain Carklson and Kenneth Dancy had stepped off the funnel, then horizontal to the water and were resucued. The loss of the Flying Enterprise made heroes out of several men and their ships and is a good read. Who knows, maybe the Walrus knew some of the people involved as the rescue tug was berthed in Falmouth for years.

 

Great recommendation, Jeff! I knew the story in general, but that sounds like a book to put on my "must read" list.

I found this:

 

This is another great read: All the Men in the Sea. It is the story of the sinking of DLB-269, a pipelaying barge sunk by Hurricane Roxanne in 1995, in the Bay of Campeche, off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. It is both a disaster, because the barge sank as a result of multiple poor decisions, some of them driven by corporate greed; and an uplifting story of heroism, because 237 out of 245 men survived the sinking, most of them rescued from the sea during the hurricane by the courageous crews of 2 tugs and a supply boat. The author, Michael Krieger, captures the drama and terror with accounts of individual crewmen as the barge is struck by the hurricane and ultimately sinks. Adding to the intensity of the story is the fact that 6 commercial divers were hanging from the barge in a diving bell for a lengthy decompression. Should they bring them up knowing they'll possibly die from the bends, or leave them hanging for 24 hours as the storm rages and risk losing them if the cable parts?

This is not as famous as other sinkings, but the sinking and the heroism and seamanship of the crews of the rescuing boats is a terrific sea story.

Captain Chuck might know more about this one.

 

Then of course there was the 'Ice Prince' day before yesterday, timber boat, cargo shifted in heavy seas, off Devon (another one!) crew rescued by two lifeboats and a helicopter from Portland! Pretty nasty to all accounts! It was a 'bit interesting' 40 miles north (ashore)! But you ain't heard about that one yet! She sank yesterday night! Appears there's a deck cargo of timber floating about and heading this way (oh goody) trouble is she lost a lot of oil too! which is going to be nasty - lets hpe the weather breaks it up before much longer (still interesting weatherwise)