Sinking ships. From the Guardian.

[dgadee]

What happens when a huge ship sinks? A step-by-step guide to averting disaster

For those of you who don't read it.

 

[jamie N]

Been there! Done that!

 

[capnsensible]

Great, thanks.

 

[KevinV]

Interesting, thanks

 

[bikedaft]

The ship in the first pic - any idea of her name? Love the SAR helo parked on the side/top

 

[Kukri]

Been there! Done that!

That’s two of us.

 

[Kukri]

The ship in the first pic - any idea of her name? Love the SAR helo parked on the side/side

Looks like the Golden Ray

MV Golden Ray - Wikipedia

 

[bikedaft]

Looks like the Golden Ray

MV Golden Ray - Wikipedia

Thanks

 

[Tranona]

Looks like the Golden Ray

MV Golden Ray - Wikipedia

Says so in the caption to the photo.

 

[Bilgediver]

Seems to have been a few cases of problems with the stability of those car carriers. There was at least one instance here in the UK where one flopped over to an excessive list near Southampton.
Seems you really have to keep a watch on stability at all times to ensure things stay upright.

 

[Stemar]

Seems to have been a few cases of problems with the stability of those car carriers. There was at least one instance here in the UK where one flopped over to an excessive list near Southampton.
Seems you really have to keep a watch on stability at all times to ensure things stay upright.

Not just car carriers. Container ships need serious care in loading/unloading too

And that's far from the only one.

 

[capnsensible]

Maritime News from around the world - FleetMon Maritime News

 

[LONG_KEELER]

Not just car carriers. Container ships need serious care in loading/unloading too

And that's far from the only one.

Perhaps a bug in the computer program.
I have noticed that bottoms of these ships are nice and clean.

 

[Sandy]

I am extremely worried, it might be the crew or the journalist who wrote this, I am pretty sure it is the journalist who is struggling.

The coastguard receives the distress call. Helicopters lift the flailing crew members to safety,

What are flailing crew members?

Is this safe in strop? I was told by a very good RAF winchman to keep my arms by my waist.

Was the journalist short on word count and decided to play 'pick a totally inappropriate word' for the article?

 

[KeelsonGraham]

The ship in the first pic - any idea of her name? Love the SAR helo parked on the side/top

And the campsite set up near the propeller shaft,

 

[Bajansailor]

Not just car carriers. Container ships need serious care in loading/unloading too

And the Chief officer's task of creating the loading plan is not made any easier when shippers state cargo weights that are much less than the actual weights in the containers.
This point was hammered home to me very passionately once by a Master while I was on a survey job on a small feeder container ship. They were loading according to the manifest, and they should have been able to load everything with ease, while allowing for ballast as required, yet they were down to their loadline long before they had finished loading their containers.

@Kukri I don't know if container weights are now verified before loading - the above incident was some years ago - but the incident mentioned above helps to show how difficult it was to calculate the stability of the vessel accurately, when so many of the shippers were lying blatantly about their weights.

The incident mentioned in the link below again illustrates the importance of accurate stability calculations all the time.
Container ship Angeln Accident report

 

[Stemar]

Do container cranes have load indicators? With all the tech around container port management, it can't be that hard for the system to note that container ABX1635 has a declared weight of 5 tones and sound an alarm is it actually weighs 10, at which point it goes in the naughty pile for customs to get curious about.

 

[dgadee]

Do container cranes have load indicators? With all the tech around container port management, it can't be that hard for the system to note that container ABX1635 has a declared weight of 5 tones and sound an alarm is it actually weighs 10, at which point it goes in the naughty pile for customs to get curious about.

I suppose there is a lot of hoping for the best. A friend ran a removals company and often had loads between NI and Scotland. He said the Scots would gather a fortune in fines by stopping lorries on the road and weighing them. He might suspect his lorries were overweight but not be sure. Of course, it wasn't just a fine since you had to get another lorry in to unload the overweight items. He used to rant about them, but I thought "good stuff" - those lorries would slow you up on that road all the way to Dumfries.

 

[newtothis]

Do container cranes have load indicators? With all the tech around container port management, it can't be that hard for the system to note that container ABX1635 has a declared weight of 5 tones and sound an alarm is it actually weighs 10, at which point it goes in the naughty pile for customs to get curious about.

Some do, but the regulations brought in by the IMO put the onus on shippers to correctly declare weights. This can be done by physically or by assessing the contents and tare weight.
Ports will usually check at the gate but declared weights and actual weights still sometimes vary. As it is the declared weight that informs the stowage plan, this can lead to problems like stack collapses or incorrect ballasting while loading.
In some jurisdictions, enforcement of the gross mass rules has been somewhat lacklustre.

 

[Adios]

I have noticed that bottoms of these ships are nice and clean.

Thats a good point. I've just done an image search for other capsized ships and they all have clean hulls. Whats their secret? Speed? Are commercial ships allowed the good stuff still?