Asgard II sinking in Biscay

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..the schooner Beautiful Chicken of the French Navy ..

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Was the Tug "Bread Sauce" in attendance? Dontcha just love auto translation.

Seriously its very sad. Shades of the Marques and Maria Assumpta? Glad that no one was lost. The fact that she flooded very quickly means that either she hit something hard or a seacock sheared off. Stressed seams would be a more gradual and contain-able leak.

Or a plank fell off... Unlikely.
 
<<and the schooner Beautiful Chicken of the French Navy which were in proximity,>>
Hope there wasn't a cock up...
 
Thank God they all got into the rafts: not an easy operation for the crew to get untrained people, some not so young, off safely. I know about 20/20 hindsight, but could never understand how the Maria Assumpta crew ended up jumping overboard or onto the rocks with no lifejackets on, the aerial photos showed the wreck with inflated liferafts alongside well after the event. report
 
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Nope, Belle Poule in the original.

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That is a coincidence. The lovely boat whose picture I posted above is 'Etoile'* almost identical sister ship to Belle Poule.

*Apparently means star, not toilet.
 
I saw her around the Fal and Pendenis last week, she looked great when we saw her sailing in the bay on the Thursday.

It'll be a great loss to the trainees if she isn't retrieved.
 
When I did my trip, before Asgard left port, we did a full afternoon's induction of safety training, including climbing the mast, liferaft drill, fire drill, and ship knowledge - which IIRC included where all the seacocks were. Being run to DoT standards, I would expect the same would be still done now.

Maria Assumpta was basically a private yacht (though she had just been MCA coded ), so unlikely they had the same level of training. Also, reading reports at the time, the Skipper was so involved with trying to steer the ship out of trouble, he neglected to tell everyone to put lifejackets on. When the ship struck, he gave the fateful instruction to jump over the side and make for the rocks, rather than going for the liferafts.
 
As a professional sailor who has worked in square rig sailing training, I can say Asgard was a ship with one of the best records of maintenance. All MCA regulations were complied with, as well as extra regulations which were stipulated by the Tall Ships Race rules, as she had recently competed in this year's Tall Ships Race.

Let us all be thankful that the safety training given to trainees and the prompt action of the expert crew facilitated the evacuation with no loss of life.

The ocean will never be tamed and this serves as a timely reminder of that.
 
"...forte voie d'eau...": just remember july 8th, the 42m spanish navy schooner Tho Pa Ga, going to Brest 2008, sunk 35 miles WSW Penmarc'h (hit a container or a trunk).
 
hard to see in tyhe dark, but she still seems to be afloat in that & the lights are on so the batteries haven't flooded at that time. i notice that one of the French reports said that she was abandoned awash and represented a hazard to shipping.

The Asgard site says she has a crew of 5 plus 3 watch leaders, all the rest are inexperienced, so abandonment is probably the best they could do. A more experienced crew may have had a chance to looks for the leak & try to stem it, but up to 20 novices aboard (plus rescue at hand) changes the priorities somewhat.
 
The sail training brigantine, designed by Jack Tyrrell of Arklow and commissioned in 1981, was en route from Falmouth in Cornwall to La Rochelle when a bilge alarm sounded at about 2am Irish time, denoting the ship was taking water.

"We were about 12 miles to the west of the island of Belle-Ile, in a southwesterly wind of force five to six, good sea conditions," Capt Newport said. "We had a very fast ingress of water into the hull. We were unable to trace its source. I had to make the decision to abandon ship."

The 20 trainees filled three liferafts in four to five minutes, and Capt Newport and two crew stayed on board for about 20 minutes to maintain radio contact with rescue services. "When we got off, she was a floating hulk. She was awash," he said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2008/0912/1221138437461.html
 
Sadly now looks like she has sunk to the bottom.

" . . . it was not until 0830 CET that she vanished from radar screens that had been monitoring her, as a hazard to navigation.

“We do not yet know the cause of the water ingress, only that it was extremely sudden and brutal.

An enquiry has been opened and a Maritime Police patrol boat will be investigating the wreck, which is lying in 70 metres of water.

http://www.bymnews.com/news/newsDetails.php?id=42520
 
It is a wonder the sinking hasn't been turned into a conspiricy theory?

In the week when the sectarian paintings in the Shankhill and Falls Road are to be 'removed', and the British government states that the IRA, as an organisation, 'ceases to exist', an Irish two masted brigantine with direct connections (in name only) to its gun running forebear and the IRA, mysteriously sinks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Figgis

Video if the sinking taken by French authorities here:

http://www.bymnews.com/photos/displayimage.php?album=307&pid=72534
 
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,... I can say Asgard was a ship with one of the best records of maintenance. All MCA regulations were complied with,.....

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Why would an Irish flagged boat conform to British regulations ?

Don't the Irish have any maritime regulations/survey ?

I thought they had gained independence.
 
I translate Belle Poule" as beautiful hen, rather than beautiful chicken (poulet). "Poule" has another (slang) meaning in French, so the ship name could actually be translated as "Beautiful Whore".
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I understand that no-one on board felt any kind of impact which seems to make collision an unlikely explanation. OTOH, it is hard to understand how a failed skin fitting could sink it so fast. Prop shaft fell out????
 
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