All the incidents I mention below
have happened on or after the last Christmas. The last two and a half weeks
have been horrible for shipping. Serious accidents, with often fatal
consequences, seem to be occurring almost every day. And these are just the
reported ones, or the ones that have hit the headlines.
It all seemed to start in the
Mediterranean, where, three days after Christmas, the ferry Norman Atlantic
caught fire that killed an unknown number of people- unknown simply because
nobody seems to know how many were on board. The Italian transport
minister said, “We cannot say how many people may be missing.” That
figure is believed to be over a hundred.
The only good news, in all the
mayhem, came from the UK, where the ro-ro ship Hoegh Osaka was intentionally
(and, if I may add, professionally) grounded by the Captain and the pilot in
the Solent after she started listing on departure from port. She has- to the
surprise of her salvors- been refloated since she was beached on January 3.
Sadly, in another incident north
of Scotland, the trouble prone cement carrier Cemfjord was not so lucky. She
was found capsized with all eight crewmembers now feared dead. Off Vietnam, the
bulk carrier Bulk Jupiter went down with 18 crew dead; just one survived.
Preliminary reports suggest that the liquefaction of her bauxite cargo did her
in.
In the South China Sea near Singapore, a
tanker and a bulker carrier collided on January 2, with 4500 barrels of oil
spilled. In Libya, amidst the civil war, anchored Greek-operated tanker Araevo was
bombed by aircraft under the control of the internationally recognised
government. Two crewmembers died; two more were injured. In lesser-reported incidents, three crewmembers died on Christmas when the Cambodia-registered Ming Guang sprang a leak and sank off Japan. The cement carrying Sea Merchant killed one of her crew when she sank off Batangas in the Philippines in rough seas on New Year’s Day. The next day, the Better Trans went down off the same country with one casualty.
Two days later, the tanker Run
Guang 9 exploded off China; two crew missing- and the boxship Helene Rickmers
ran aground in the Solomon Sea. Four days later, the Maersk LNG tanker Magellan
Spirit ran aground off Bonny, Nigeria.
Finally (fingers crossed) the
Gulf Rio ran aground in the Black Sea on Jan 8. There were, fortunately, no
casualties. Not so lucky were the three souls on the catamaran Pura Vida
Princess, who died when she capsized off Venezuela the same day.
This litany of ship casualties is
as fantastic as it is grotesque; I cannot recall, in the last thirty years, a two-week
period with such horrendous statistics. (I may be wrong, though; I was sailing
much of that time, when information was more difficult to come by).
No doubt, there will be enquiries
into at least the more high profile accidents, and we will –hopefully- learn
from those. Meanwhile, 2015 has started on a terrible note, and brings to mind
the British Queen’s 1992 ‘annus horribilis' (a horrible year) speech.
The disastrous start to the year
should also serve as a reminder to all of us- especially those who believe that
the issue of safety can be mastered by just legislation or checklists- that the
sea remains a dangerously capricious mistress for those of us that sail, and
that enhanced mariner competence is the only way we can hope to keep things
safe.
Or safe enough, at least.
.
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