Those of you folks who visited my cruising grounds might remember...

MapisM

MapisM

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...the following beautiful bay at the southern tip of Sant'Antioco island, among other things.
The pic was taken back in 2018, upon our arrival after the delivery trip of the new to us boat.
Peaceful, 'innit?
R062idzT_o.jpg


Well, it's a bit different right now, just round the corner from that spot! :eek:
Luckily, nobody hurt, according to the news.
 
wow that is hefty,

how could this happen?
was the ships anchored south of San pietro, lying there sheltered for the mistral, waiting for the weather to settle ?
probably without a skipper ?
or did they have mechanical problems ?

keep tight for tomorrow, forecast looks heavy in Cagliari :oops:
 
Just behind Capo Sperone. Anchored there myself a few times. Not surprised because there's nothing except sea between there and Africa and its very open to any wind with south in it. You know better than I do but the scirocco wind can blow pretty hard in that area
 
Not sure about the exact dynamics of the accident, but she ran aground just on the W side of Capo Sperone, not on the E side.
In fact, as you probably remember, all the W side of Sant'Antioco island is VERY exposed to Mistral - all the way up to Golfe du Lion, with a fetch of 300+ Nm! Going further N, San Pietro grants some shelter, but not in the southernmost tip of Sant'Antioco.
Btw, the exact position of the grounded ship is still visible in AIS tracking websites, at the moment.

Anyway, since the ship came from Cagliari and was heading towards Alicante, my guess is that after going round Capo Sperone they met sea conditions that suddenly went from very bad to even worse, probably with some technical problem on top.
I did think myself, when cruising along that rocky coast with Mistral, that a loss of power could be very bad news, also because the seabed becomes pretty deep within short distance from the coast, so also the last resort of anchoring can be a gamble...

@ Deleted User: yep, actually with my pic above I was cheating a bit (though I did say "round the corner"... :)), because that was taken in the bay E of Capo Sperone, which is well sheltered from Mistral but very exposed to any S wind.
The other side, where the ship ran aground, would also be nice to explore, but anchoring is difficult for the reason I just mentioned.
 
MapisM said:
@ Deleted User: yep, actually with my pic above I was cheating a bit (though I did say "round the corner"... :)), because that was taken in the bay E of Capo Sperone, which is well sheltered from Mistral but very exposed to any S wind.
The other side, where the ship ran aground, would also be nice to explore, but anchoring is difficult for the reason I just mentioned.
Click to expand...
Ah OK didnt realise the grounding was on the W side. Yup, the mistral can blow pretty hard as you round Sperone going north but I always felt that there was some shelter from S Pietro to its full effects

It looks to me that the wind was not a mistral but a W to SW wind and for sure a ship that size must have suffered some kind of mechanical failure to get blown aground
 
Deleted User said:
It looks to me that the wind was not a mistral but a W to SW wind
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Can't tell for sure, but you might well be right on that.
Sometimes the strongest winds in this area develop as NW, and then rotate CCW a bit.
Also this morning, we must have had some W wind gusts upon landing, which made it ...ahem... interesting, so to speak.
With "pure" Mistral, CA airport is not too bad, courtesy of almost exactly 315° heading of its runways.
 
It appears that the ship was empty, but there are already signs of fuel spill, unsurprisingly.
And the wind is still strong, so I guess it can only get worse, unfortunately.
Also because the bottom of the exact place where she's grounded is pretty rocky - see pic below.... :(
RxwgyNIX_o.jpg
 
You would think the ship would anchor on the eastern side San Pietro in those conditions if experiencing difficulties. Regardless of the reasons, it's going to be a big mess to clean up.

I hope you both have a good festive season ahead. When does Lido Blu come out of the water for haul-out?
 
Hurricane said:
I have access to a Vesselfinder Premium account - have a look at this:
Click to expand...
Many thanks M, that's a very interesting graphic indeed.
What were they thinking springs to mind!

I hope you don't if I modified your screenshot a bit.
In fact, based on my understanding of the events, I believe that the previous track shown there included the bit of the arrival to Cagliari, before leaving Cagliari for Alicante, which is what really matters in this case.

The track below, showing only the part from the departure from CA and up to the grounding, suggests that they headed straight towards Alicante first, and after realizing that the conditions were too bad (or after having some problem - this is still unclear at this stage), they reversed their route and looked for shelter - in between S.Antioco and S.Pietro first.
Then, for reasons that I can't for the life of me understand, they decided to circumnavigate S.Pietro and then go SE, towards Capo Sperone.
Probably aiming to anchor, eventually, in the "Palmas" gulf, which is E of S.Antioco - where in fact Vesselfinder shows other ships anchored.

In the meantime, also today the pounding from the sea continued, and my guess is that by the time conditions might allow an attempt to pull her with tugs, the damages will be (unless they already are!) extended enough to make a quick refloat impossible... :(

12zbxrT6_o.jpg
 
AndieMac said:
I hope you both have a good festive season ahead. When does Lido Blu come out of the water for haul-out?
Click to expand...
,
Many thanks C, likewise to yourself & family.

LB is already sheltered, but we are enjoying S Sardinia anyhow.
I'm in fact typing from BA, moored right in the center of Cagliari - a privilege for which I'll never be grateful enough to BartW of this parish!
Btw, in spite of the still VERY strong wind that blew today, the marina is extremely well sheltered and the small ship which you are also familiar with is solid as a rock - a true liveaboard dream! (y)
 
MapisM said:
Many thanks M, that's a very interesting graphic indeed.
What were they thinking springs to mind!

I hope you don't if I modified your screenshot a bit.
Click to expand...

No problem
You may remember that I have installed an AIS Coastal receive station in Sant Carles Marina.
The process of streaming AIS from the Sant Carles area into the Vesselfinder servers gives us (well, actually the SCMCHAT forum) access to a Vesselfinder Premium account.
They will do this for anyone who streams AIS data to them.
I use the Vesselfinder Premium Account to set up a "Virtual SCM Fleet".
We then have a page on SCMCHAT that only reports the "Virtual SCM Fleet" and not all the other shipping.
It is then easy to find each other wherever we cruise.
I have also added the 4 Brittany Ferries that we all use when travelling to/from the marina.

The Vesselfinder Premium Account incorporates extended AIS history - hence the image above.
 
MapisM said:
,
Many thanks C, likewise to yourself & family.

LB is already sheltered, but we are enjoying S Sardinia anyhow.
I'm in fact typing from BA, moored right in the center of Cagliari - a privilege for which I'll never be grateful enough to BartW of this parish!
Btw, in spite of the still VERY strong wind that blew today, the marina is extremely well sheltered and the small ship which you are also familiar with is solid as a rock - a true liveaboard dream! (y)
Click to expand...
No doubt Bart will also appreciate having his local connection aboard during the adverse weather, so he can relax and focus on a big family Christmas celebration, as the W’s are so good at :)
 
the ship was coming exactly from the spot which I tought, and mentioned in my post nr 2, (south of St Pietro)
that is the place where I've seen many ships of that size anchored, well protected against mistral, and a wide zone of only 20...40m depth,
but its indeed very strange why she did that circomnavigation around the island, moreover, some zones between the island and main island are very shallow, and if you don't know the region, are very dangerous to pass with a ship of that size in such weather conditions, (I've seen many spots of less than 3m deep below BA), and they were not accurately showed on my digital map.
it would not surprise me of the ship got some damage making that passage !

would be interesting to know what has happened.
 
BartW said:
but its indeed very strange why she did that circomnavigation around the island, moreover, some zones between the island and main island are very shallow, and if you don't know the region, are very dangerous to pass with a ship of that size in such weather conditions, (I've seen many spots of less than 3m deep below BA), and they were not accurately showed on my digital map.
it would not surprise me of the ship got some damage making that passage !

would be interesting to know what has happened.
Click to expand...

Yes - I thought that as well - the water between San Pietro and Portoscuso isn't very deep.
And it appeared to head for the small channel to the west of that little island NE of San Pietro before deciding that it was too shallow to go that way.
When we were there, we did use that channel but only after the advice from MapisM
 
Indeed. It's safe with any vessel with a draft up to 3m or so, but as you might remember, my suggestion came with a caveat, i.e. better not go through it in rough seas.
Not that anyone in his right mind would go out in those conditions with a pleasure boat of course, but with big waves that narrow channel becomes dangerous regardless of how low the boat draft is.
 
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