In SwedishContainer ship split in two
A crack is clearly visible on the port side of hull directly under the wing of the bridge. Photo: Marine Nationale.
A large container ship was heading west in the English Channel through a storm. The speed was not reduced since the ship was judged to be strong enough to take the high seas. Soon after the ship had collided with several large waves a loud cracking sound was heard. Several bilge alarms in the machine room went off.
The engineer on duty discovered that the main cooling water pipe from the seawater pump had completely sheared and that water was flooding in. He closed the connecting valves and managed to stop the inflow of water.
On the way back to the control room the water tank top fore of the main engine seemed to open up and ”a wave of oily water” came rushing up. The engineer quickly returned to the control room. The chief technician came down and discovered what appeared to be cracks in the top of the tank. He also noticed a large crack on the starboard side, close to the sea chest. The machine room was evacuated.
From the bridge, the captain saw that the side of the ship was bulging out under the wings of the bridge and that there were cracks in the hull on both sides under the water line. It was decided to abandon ship.
The red line shows where the crack arose. Photo: MAIB
All of the crew managed to get into the covered lifeboat on the port side. The crew of 26 were dressed in survival suits and had drinking water with them in bottles. The painter could not be loosened since it was so crowded and it had to be cut off from the outside with a knife by the chief engineer.
Even though the lifeboat was designed for 32 people, it was very cramped, hot and unpleasant for the 26 in it. The survival suits were cumbersome and the fixed gloves made it very difficult to use hands. In addition, everyone was seasick. In the end they cut the gloves off the suits.
After that people could use their hands more easily and drink the water they had with them. After half an hour the crew was rescued by helicopter. The ship grounded and finally broke into two parts.
A number of factors caused the ship to crack. Some of them are briefly described below.
• The hull was not sufficiently strong at the level of the machine room.
• When the ship was built there were insufficient regulations for parts of the hull.
• Safety margins between the load capacity and the ship’s strength were not sufficiently large.
• The speed of the ship was not reduced sufficiently in the relatively stormy weather.
Investigations of a very large number of similar ships showed that at least 20 had similar deficiencies that required measures to be taken. The investigation also criticises the pace of work in conjunction with cargo handling and the lack of correct information about the contents and weight of the containers. Not even the location of the containers corresponded to be loading plan.
MAIB 9/2008
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