Container vessel abandoned mid atlantic.

Robwhelton said:
Idle speculation here, but I wonder if the gradual shift away from polystyrene towards paper-based packaging materials will coincidentally lead to less floating containers?
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Good point. But I fear it may be very gradual.

It is amazing how light many laden containers are - ships built for the main line East West trades are usually built around an homogenous weight of 12 tons per twenty foot equivalent unit - and there will be plenty of twenty footers containers with a weight of 28 tons or so included in that.
 
UPDATE MSC FLAMINIA

A SECOND explosion on board the containership MSC Flaminia has hindered rescue operations.

The latest explosion happened on Tuesday afternoon, a full three days after the initial blast and fire had badly damaged the German-owned vessel, killing one officer and forcing the crew to abandon ship.

The ship was on charter to Mediterranean Shipping Co and heading from Charleston to Antwerp and Felixstowe when the accident occurred in mid-Atlantic. [Departed Inverness UK on Sunday]

Lloyd’s List understands that the manifest has not revealed any obvious cause of the explosion, with the cargo consisting of fairly standard items, although virtually all ships are likely to carry freight that is declared dangerous.

There was hazardous cargo on board, said a spokesperson for tramp owner NSB Niederelbe , “but that is the case with almost any such vessel”.

MSC has told customers it is unable to say yet whose cargo has been affected.

The accident has raised fresh concerns about misdeclarations, given the fact that there did not appear to be any potentially unstable cargo in the hold. However, a full investigation will not be possible until the ship is back in port.

NSB said the salvage operation had been stopped following the second blast, but was about to be resumed.

The explosion happened close to where the first one occurred on Saturday. The exact location of the blast could not be determined due to the dense smoke, the spokesperson said.

According to NSB, the explosions and subsequent fire have not resulted in the total loss of the ship.

“It became clear that neither the superstructure nor the engine room, the stern section or the forecastle of the ship were directly affected by the fire or the explosion,” said the manager of the KG-owned vessel.

However, NSB added the salvage captain has not yet finished assessing the condition of the vessel.

The second engineer of NSB’s ship Hanjin Ottawa, which had arrived at the scene of the incident on Tuesday, will remain with the salvage team to accompany the transport of MSC Flaminia to Europe.

He will also be responsible for reactivating the firefighting systems on the vessel, NSB said.

Dutch salvage company Smit has already sent two firefighting tugs to the site. The first tug, the Fairmount Expedition, has reached MSC Flaminia, while the second is still on its way. [Second tug departed Inverness UK on Sunday]

A third tug, the Carlo Magno, has been ordered to the scene to help stabilise the vessel. The tug is scheduled to leave Rotterdam shortly, with orders to tow the MSC Flaminia to Europe once the fire has been extinguished.
 
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LATEST PICTURES:

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Close up:

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Pictures taken by the crew of the M/V Hanjin Ottawa indicate that neither the superstructure, engine room, stern section or forecastle of the ship have been directly affected by the explosion or fire.
 
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She looks pretty good considering; unless the fire breaks into the other closed holds or there's larger explosions causing hull damage they should be able to get it back to harbour.

I've looked up the relevant SOLAS section;

Chapter II-2 - Fire protection, fire detection and fire extinction

paragraph 10.2.5 says that a BA compressor is not mandatory, which bears out my own experience on a panamax container ship and a car carrier, neither of which had a compressor. Frankly that says it all about the IMO, the ship owners' poodle.

Editted to add; that first picture above seems to show a kink in the deck by the fire, I hope it's a optical distortion rather than a structural failure.
 
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penfold said:
She looks pretty good considering; unless the fire breaks into the other closed holds or there's larger explosions causing hull damage they should be able to get it back to harbour.

I've looked up the relevant SOLAS section;

Chapter II-2 - Fire protection, fire detection and fire extinction

paragraph 10.2.5 says that a BA compressor is not mandatory, which bears out my own experience on a panamax container ship and a car carrier, neither of which had a compressor. Frankly that says it all about the IMO, the ship owners' poodle.

Editted to add; that first picture above seems to show a kink in the deck by the fire, I hope it's a optical distortion rather than a structural failure.
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I stand corrected! Well done for looking it up.

Am I seeing the letters "S" and "C" of "MSC" partly burned off?

Could soon be a loss of longitudinal strength, there.
 
penfold said:
that first picture above seems to show a kink in the deck by the fire, I hope it's a optical distortion rather than a structural failure.
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I was going to ask, is it the lens, a design feature ( which seems unlikely ) or does she look 'hogged', ie reverse sheer ?

I presume the list could be from firefighting water, manually or automatically applied ?

The salvage bods will be earning every penny if they get her in, I'd guess from my total lack of merchant ship knowledge !
 
I think her back is broken... There must be massive structural damage due to the heat..

The only place she is going is to the bottom....
 
They should have the firefighting capacity, but whether they can keep her afloat is, perhaps, another matter. If the containers do prove to have undeclared chemicals/items, then the arbitration court will make interesting hearing.
 
diapason said:
I wonder whether the salvage contract will be daily hire or Lloyds open form? A substantial risk for the salvors in either event.
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In the distant past when I was involved with this sort of thing we (salvors) would have gone for Lloyds Form for this sort of job, although getting security from the cargo will be an administrative headache. The ship is ten years old and in a recession but the damage should be localised in a part of the ship which is basically all straight flat steel, so she might be worth repairing, and the cargo value will be good.

There is a nice technical legal issue which is whether the owners have agency of necessity to bind the cargo, the crew having abandoned. Probably they do.
 
Twister_Ken said:
That's mebbe a bit premature - seeing the state of some of the war-damaged ships that were salved in WW2.
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I suppose the tanker Ohio being dragged into Malta with warships tied each side to keep her afloat being a rather good example, but there was a war and a siege going on then, people might not fancy doing the same sort of things right now !
 
Seajet said:
Minn,

any chance of saying that in a way I might understand, if we just for now pretend I'm an idiot , please ?!
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Lloyds Form is really just a glorified arbitration agreement with provisions for security and some boilerplate about pollution, but the parties have to consent to it. The Master has "agency of necessity" to bind the cargo owners to the LOF - so long as he is in command - but if he has abandoned ship sine spe revertendi (I can do this all day... without hope of returning) then there are two consequences - first the salvage award will be larger and secondly there is a slight question about whether the cargo owners are still bound by an agreement made by the ship owners.

In practice, they probably are. You might phone up the owner of a cargo of oil or of coal but phoning several thousand owners of general cargo is impossible.
 
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Seajet said:
I suppose the tanker Ohio being dragged into Malta with warships tied each side to keep her afloat being a rather good example, but there was a war and a siege going on then, people might not fancy doing the same sort of things right now !
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I expect her to be brought in OK. Much depends on the weather if you have a seriously weakened ship but the weather is OK at the moment.
 
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