While on contract with ENI offshore Nigeria last week, Transocean’s ultra-deepwater semisubmersible rig, Sedco Express (EXS), coordinated an at-sea firefighting rescue of the crew of a bunkering tanker which had caught fire nearby.

After receiving a report that the nearby M/T Okiki had caught fire, Sedco Express’ watch officers dispached the FSV Abraham to the scene while the Captain Romulo Oliveira and his EXS team assumed the role of on-scene coordinator for the response.  

Mayday-relay messages sent by the rig were acknowledged by Seacor Marine’s 220′ Platform Supply Vessel Al-Kat which promptly proceeded to the distress location. Al-Kat engaged in remote firefighting after the crew abandoned the tanker.

Transocean notes that 13 of the 14 crew members on board the tanker were safely rescued by FSV Abraham where they were subsequently transferred to the Sedco Express for medical attention.  The missing man has not been found despite the efforts of the vessels during the search and rescue operations.

“The key to the effective assistance during this difficult situation was good coordination of the situation by the EXS team and the full support received from our customer deploying every available resource at the time,” said Jelle Gepkens, Sedco Express’ Offshore Installation Manager. “The timely response combined with the team spirit has truly saved lives.”

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency praised the efforts of those involved in the rescue.

From right: Hary Kukucevic , Senior Dynamic Position Operator; Saulo Silva, Senior Mate; Ramon Empit Senior Dynamic Position Operator; William Ebejer , Dynamic Position Operator; Warren McCombe Dynamic Position Operator; Jelle Gepkens, OIM; Bill Stewart, Barge Engineer; and Romulo Oliveira Captain.

Coast Guard Responds to Carnival Splendor in 2010.  (photo: USCG –  Jetta Disco)

Should people pay for rescue when it’s their fault?  I get asked that question often.  For years I was on a team that went out to the end result of someone else’s bad decision and saved their backside – at great expense to the taxpayer I might add.   So it makes sense that I would think that the costs of those rescues should be recovered, right?  Well, I don’t.  Not at all. Not even a little.

The last thing I would want is to know that a family was out there in real danger, in a fight between their brain and their wallet trying to figure out  if they can afford to call “Mayday.”  Deciding when it’s time to call for help is difficult enough without adding the pressure of a crushing bill.  People already wait too long to call when things get bad.  Charging for rescue would only ensure that they will call even later – increasing their risk and that of their rescuers – and fewer lives would be saved.

But what about Carnival Cruise Lines and the massive operations to rescue the Splendor and Triumph? It was obviously their fault, and the rescues were  expensive to the taxpayers. Surely charging them is a good idea, right?  Again, I don’t think so.  Not even a little.

What’s Going On Out There?

When anything goes wrong at sea, the Coast Guard refers to it as a “casualty.”  Marine casualties may result in death, but more often than not the word is used to describe other mishaps like fire, running aground, colliding with another ship, or experiencing a loss of propulsion or power.  Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) wanted to know how often these things happen and in a letter to Admiral Papp, asked (among other things) for a list of large passenger vessel casualties that the Coast Guard had responded to in recent years.  The list didn’t look good for Carnival.

After receiving the list, Rockefeller wrote to Carnival’s CEO, Micky Arison, with valid points. Carnival ships have experienced what looks like more than their fair share of casualties (over 90 in five years) and responding to them – during rescues and/or investigations – costs money.  What they are doing to decrease the number of casualties and make their ships safer is an important question.  But asking them to pay the costs of specific rescue operations is – in my opinion – a bad idea.  Not only should they not have to pay for the Coast Guard involvement in the cases of Splendor and Triumph, but the senator shouldn’t have asked, and the U.S. shouldn’t accept it if they do.

The Numbers

First of all, the numbers are off.  In addition to the list of casualties for Carnival ships, Sen. Rockefeller also asked the Coast Guard’s Commandant for the costs associated with the Splendor and Triumph rescues; they were $1,541,904.53 and 779,914.26 respectively, with an additional $1,884,376.75 for the Navy’s response to Splendor that, I assume, includes the cost of the food flown over from the USS Ronald Reagan.   With the exception of that food – which the Navy didn’t purchase with plans to hand it over to cruise patrons –  the other costs aren’t as real as they might appear.

Whenever someone asks what a rescue operation “costs,” the numbers are arrived at by taking the  hours a boat or aircraft was engaged in the rescue and multiplying that by the cost per hour for those assets.   Those numbers are found in Commandant Instruction 7310.1N -  which sets the standard reimbursable rates for all Coast Guard equipment. So for every hour the USCGC Vigorous was on the Triumph case, the cost was $6,718 dollars per.  Aviation assets can be even more expensive.  Helicopter time of the MH-60 variety, for example, is assessed at over $14,000 per hour.  These amounts include everything from the cost of fuel to the manpower aboard, from the depreciation of the asset to the administrative costs.  And there is my first problem with billing for rescue operation: in all but the most extreme cases (Katrina, Deepwater, etc.), we were spending that money, anyway.

Always Ready Doesn’t Mean Always Waiting

The U.S. Coast Guard doesn’t run like an ambulance service.  While there are rescue teams standing by twenty-four hours a day, they aren’t always just sitting there.  That’s because every profession in the service has proficiency requirements.  Pilots need to fly so many hours in a variety of conditions, flight mechanics need to perform a certain number of hoists per month, and swimmers need to leave the aircraft (by jumping or being lowered) a minimum of six times every month, or they aren’t qualified anymore.

Proficiency requirements are set for boat drivers and boarding teams as well.  Often these minimum requirements are met not during training evolutions but during actual at-sea emergencies. Many Coast Guard assets are budgeted to operate a set number of hours per year and whether these are out on training missions or out saving lives, the hours are going to be spent.  It isn’t as if the crew of the cutter or the pilots flying the aircraft weren’t getting paid that week, but since Triumph caught fire we “taxpayers” had to ante up.

The math isn’t as simple as hours times cost.  The rescue of Splendor did not cause the Coast Guard to go 1.5 million in the hole in 2010.  When a mariner calls for rescue and a helicopter flies out to save them, there is definitely increased risk, but those hours were going to be flown anyway. The crews were getting paid anyway.  That reality needs to find its way into any discussion about what a rescue might actually “cost.”

The Coast Guard Cutter Morgenthau – $17,602 per hour. Or is it?

Can They Bill Us?

If a government can bill Carnival for the costs incurred during a rescue, can Carnival bill the government for performing a rescue for us?   In the last ten years, sometimes at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard, Carnival ships were involved in the at-sea rescue of  126 people.  Carnival – like almost every other cruise ship in the world – participates in AMVER – the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System. When called, member ships drop everything and head towards rescue.

So if the government can charge $17,000 per hour for a  Coast Guard 378 foot cutter, how much can Carnival charge the government for the Carnival Conquest?  At 953 feet with 1,150 crew aboard, I’m guessing that it’s a few dollars more than $17,000.  Add in the reasonable expense of refunds to the 2,900 passengers for possible lost port calls and we may find ourselves in a game we don’t want to play.  Make no mistake, when Conquest (as an AMVER participant) pulls migrants off a raft they are spending their money to support U.S. Coast Guard operations.

Precedence

Yesterday – in a reversal from their position on Friday – Carnival caved and said they would be paying us back for the rescues.

“I’m glad to see that Carnival owned up to the bare minimum of corporate responsibility by reimbursing federal taxpayers for these two incidents,” Sen. Rockefeller said.

Personally, I think it was a decision less about a sense of responsibility and more about buying their way out of a fight and negative publicity.  Money well spent, perhaps, but that doesn’t make it legal.

What will the Treasury Department  do with the money?  There are laws in place to bill for Coast Guard costs associated with oil spills and damages to aids to navigation, but I haven’t seen any regulations governing the cost of rescue and how bills to mariners (private and commercial) should be handled.  If Senator Rockefeller believes there should be such laws, he should propose a bill -but good luck to him on setting a standard.

Let’s assume for a minute that we take Carnival’s money as compensation for the rescue that was necessary because of their alleged negligent operations;  do we go back now and send bills for all rescues that were needed when it was the mariner’s fault?

Rescue and Blame Don’t Mix

When a father takes his son out fishing and runs aground in the bayou because he isn’t paying attention, the grounding is definitely his fault.  But his son is diabetic and dad didn’t bring the insulin, so instead of waiting for the tide to rise, the father calls “Mayday.” (This happens at least once a year.)  The Coast Guard is definitely going to save the kid.  But it was his father’s fault.  He should pay for it. What will that cost?  Let’s see:

One H-65 Dolphin = $11,216 per hour

Four hours = $44,864.00

I guess we can set up payment plans.

What about the medevac of a Maersk  employee for a possible heart attack 130 miles from shore?  It wasn’t the American taxpayer who decided to head offshore in rough weather with a bad ticker.  What would that kind of rescue bill out at?

One C-130 (required to fly cover on rescues over 100 miles from shore) = $18,116 per hour

One H-60  = $14,519

Total cost  for four hours = $130,540

I wonder how many Maersk ships have come to the aid of mariners in distress over the years and how much they spent doing it?

Perhaps Carnival’s position on Friday was correct; maybe we should all ”honor maritime tradition that holds that the duty to render assistance at sea to those in need is a universal obligation of the entire maritime community.”

We Already Have Fines for Negligence

In each of those 90 casualties aboard Carnival ships that were investigated by the Coast Guard since 2008, the government had an opportunity to say, “This was your fault – it was negligence – and here is your fine for doing something wrong.”  The Coast Guard detains and fines foreign ship owners all the time. Maybe the answer for Carnival is not about creating a law that would make them responsible to cover the cost of rescue, but rather about our inability or unwillingness to enforce the laws already in place?

Like so many things in government, what seems reasonable on the surface is decidedly more complex when you really take a look.  The issue is not as simple as assigning blame and sending a bill.

M/V Atlantic Confidence seen partially sunk off the coast of Oman on March 30, 2013. Photo: NATO Task Force

A U.S. warship conducting counter-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean with the NATO Task Force assisted in the rescue of 21 Turkish crewmembers of a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier after a fire forced them to abandon ship.

According to the NATO report, the bulk carrier M/V Atlantic Confidence reported a fire in the engine room while off the coast of Oman on March 30th and requested assistance. Soon, the Captain of the Atlantic Confidence ordered his crew to abandon ship in life rafts after determining the fire was out of control.

Photo: NATO Task Force

Upon receiving the call, the nearby USS Nicholas was ordered to provide assistance and dispatched a helicopter to locate the vessel about 80 miles away. Upon reaching the scene, the helicopter crew saw that the Atlantic Confidence was already partially sunk but that the survivors were safely in the life rafts.

After verifying that none of the crew members were in need of immediate medical assistance, the USS Nicholas coordinated the rescue with the oil tanker M/T Pluto, which was transiting in the area and also entirely manned by a Turkish crew.

“Once again we were able to provide timely assistance to a merchant vessel in trouble,” said Admiral Antonio Natale, Commander of the NATO Task Force. “NATO’s role here is to patrol these busy waters to counter the threat of Somali piracy, but aid in case of emergency is historically the first mission of every good sailor and we were more than happy to provide timely assistance.”

The Atlantic Confidence is part of Atlantic Shipping and Trading’s fleet. No word yet on the status of the vessel.

Photo: Singapore Civil Defence Force

Four people were injured Tuesday night after a fire broke out at a Singapore shipyard.

A statement from Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower said that the fire started on board a tug at the Tanoto Shipyard in Jurong and spread to three adjacent vessels. The statement added that four crewmembers were injured and taken to a nearby hospital. It appears that the 3 people first reported missing have been located.

The fire started at 9:20pm Tuesday and was extinguished by 4:30am Wednesday, according to the Singapore Civil Defence Force.

The Ministry of Manpower has launched an investigation into the fire.

More photos of the fire can be found HERE.

M/T Harbour Krystal, Image: Nordic Tankers

Yesterday morning, the chemical tanker Harbour Krystal suffered an explosion and subsequent fire while sailing northbound off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal.  One crewmember is still missing and a search effort is currently underway by Portuguese authorities.

Nordic Tankers, operators of the vessel, report that the vessel is carrying a cargo of light virgin naptha and was bound for Amsterdam at the time of the incident.  In an update on 7 March, a Nordic Tankers’ spokesperson notes “All cargo and bunker tanks remain intact and undamaged and there has been no pollution. The vessel is in a stable condition.”

A later update on 7 March said that the vessel has now entered and anchored in the port of Setubal, Portugal, where a full assessment will be conducted.

MT Harbour Krystal is a 2006 built double hulled tanker of 11,262 dwt.

West Delta 32 platform approximately 20 miles offshore Grand Isle, Louisiana. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

GRAND ISLE, La.–Divers searching the Gulf of Mexico for two workers missing after an explosion on an oil platform recovered the body of one Saturday night, as the U.S. Coast Guard stopped its search.

Mark Pregeant, chief executive of Grand Isle Shipyard Inc., said in an interview Saturday night that one body had been pulled from the Gulf but had not been identified. The other worker remains missing. Grand Isle Shipyard employed both workers.

The news marked the first confirmed fatality from the explosion and fire that broke out on an offshore oil platform Friday morning. Investigators and the companies involved began probing what caused the blast.

The workers were part of a crew performing construction work on a platform owned by Black Elk Energy Offshore Operations LLC that wasn’t producing oil at the time.

Grand Isle Shipyard, which employed 14 of the 22 people aboard at the time of the accident, said Saturday that four of its personnel were in critical but stable condition.

The explosion, about 20 miles offshore, injured at least 11 workers in addition to the dead man and the missing man. It also rattled residents here in Grand Isle, a town of about 1,300 people on a barrier island at the far southern tip of Louisiana.

Grand Isle, which draws much of its revenue from tourism, was severely affected in 2010 by the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident, which triggered the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Some residents initially feared this week’s accident would be a small-scale repeat of that disaster, which fouled the beach with tar balls.

But Friday’s platform fire was extinguished quickly. Although the incident left a thin film of oil floating on the Gulf’s shallow waters, federal officials said it wasn’t expected to cause significant environmental damage.

Investigators took a helicopter to the scene of the accident Saturday, landing on the platform along with teams from Grand Isle Shipyard and Black Elk Energy.

Grand Isle’s chief executive, Mark Pregeant, rebutted reports that workers may have helped cause the explosion by using a torch to cut through a pipe, throwing off sparks that ignited containers holding oil residue.

The reports were mentioned Friday by Black Elk Energy Chief Executive John Hoffman, who said that if true, it would mean workers weren’t following the proper procedure.

“Initial reports that a welding torch was being used at the time of the incident or that an incorrect line was cut are completely inaccurate,” Mr. Pregeant said in a statement Saturday, adding that the cause was unknown.

Mr. Pregeant said in an interview that a torch had not been used, based on an inspection of the platform but declined to elaborate. The Coast Guard had been probing reports into how the pipe was cut, and an official said Saturday that he had no new information about the cause.

Black Elk Energy didn’t respond to requests for comment Saturday. In a statement on its website, the Houston-based company said it was working closely with federal and state agencies. “Our total focus is on the missing workers and the proper care and attention for the injured and their families,” the company said.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the federal agency in charge of regulating offshore safety, said in a statement Saturday that it was probing the causes the explosion and would take “appropriate enforcement action.”

- Daniel Gilbert, (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Company

There were also 2 passengers on board at the time. One was Johnny Rosen, a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, who, looking for a little bit of adventure and possibly to rekindle his maritime past, opted to board the ill-fated containership as a passenger for a ride to Europe.

Please note: At the personal request of the families of the deceased and injured, crew members names, photographs and ranks have been removed from this story as of 13 November 2012.

Here is his story:

What day did you leave Charleston?

JR: The Flaminia sailed from Charleston on Saturday, July 7th.

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

What was the trip like prior to the fire and explosion?

JR: Plain sailing!  Uneventful.

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

At what time point did the fire break out?

JR:  The fire ignited in the wee hours of Saturday, July 14th. As I awoke in the “Supercargo” cabin at 5am, I witnessed smoke billowing upwards from containers stacked on hold # 4, and the nauseating stench of burning plastic. My cabin was near the top of the superstructure, one deck below the bridge, on the port side forward. I had a grandstand seat at the unfolding disaster….and I wasn’t a bit happy about it.

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Following the fire, what was the reaction of the crew?

Thirty minutes later the alarm sounded, Crewmember A’s voice sparked across the PA. He instructed all on board to muster at emergency stations. Crew (and passengers, myself included) stayed cool, calm and collected throughout.

At what point did the blast occur?

JR: The big blast exploded at about 8 am on the morning of Saturday, July 14th, three hours after the fire started.  It sounded like a five-hundred-pound bomb on a battlefield. It was violent, shocking and loud.

GC: Who was fighting the fire when the blast occurred?

JR: Fighting the fire were Crewmembers A, B, C, D, and E.

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

How long was it before you boarded the lifeboat?

JR: About two hours.

Only the starboard boat was launched. Crewmember G decided not to launch the port side boat when floating containers- that had been blown off the ship- were spotted floating directly below.

Then what happened?

The lifeboat was eventually launched at about 10am, after Crewmember F forced the stuck brake to release and the davits to function. With Crewmember G in command and Crewmember H at the lifeboat’s helm, they steered the boat as close to the burning Flaminia as possible to allow Crewmember K, and Crewmember M to grab a rope ladder and climb back up to the hatch deck to search for Crewmember A and missing Crewmember R.

Once on board, K and M struggled to load the severely injured Crewmember A into a life raft, then battled to lower the raft down to the choppy water.

All this time we sat  helpless in the lifeboat as it was tossed around the sea directly below a dozen broken and damaged containers teetering on the edge of the deck, sixty feet above our heads.

As the orange lifeboat bashed and bounced against the Flaminia’s hull, some of the crew and the other passenger became seasick. Orange hardhats soon became vomit buckets.

It was important to keep the lifeboat close to the Flaminia yet avoid crashing against the hull as K and M rescued the Crewmember A.

Once Crewmembers A, K and M were safely in the raft, a tow-line was used to connect the raft to the lifeboat.

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen

Soon after, the DS Crown, a 300,000-ton supertanker, which dwarfed the Flaminia, miraculously appeared and our lifeboat then maneuvered toward it. The tanker came to within a few hundred yards of the Flaminia and its Russian and Filipino crew immediately sprung into action, lowering a rescue basket to snatch survivors from the Flaminia’s lifeboat bobbing in the water, far below.

Getting the Flaminia’s badly wounded seafarers into the basket was a brutal job.

Credit for his super-human effort goes to Crewmember F, who single-handedly made it happen, with help from Crewmember H and one gutsy Filipino seaman.

JR: From the burning deck of the Flaminia, Crewmember K had lowered a rope ladder.  Crewmember M had climbed up to the deck, and worked with him to save Crewmember A.

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

In the flimsy liferaft, now being towed by our lifeboat to the DS Crown, was Crewmember A accompanied by K and M, who loyally stayed behind to nurse him.

Using the tanker’s huge white crane like a surgical cherry-picker, the crew of the DS Crown expertly plucked us from the top of our rocking and rolling lifeboat with their Billy Pugh rescue basket as the boat repeatedly bashed against the DS Crown’s enormous hull. Crewmembers F, G, and a Filipino crewmember manhandled us into the rescue basket, one and two at a time.

K and M had managed to bring Crewmember A down to the water and loaded him into the life raft.

There was no talk nor discussion about the ship which continued to burn among the Flaminia’s survivors, nor among the DS Crown’s crew.

The MSC Stella arrived on scene two hours later to evacuate C, D, and E, who would soon be winched over the side of the DS Crown, and down to the Stella’s rescue boat.

Crewmembers C and E have now spent two months in the burn unit in Portugal, and their prognosis is good, but sadly Crewmember D passed just last week.

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

MSC Stella arrives, Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Leaving the scene on the DS Crown, Photo (c) Johnny Rosen, 2012

Kantika, image via Phuket News

Is anyone surprised that an LPG carrier covered in this much rust, also has a cloud of smoke billowing from its wheelhouse?

This is the Kantika, an 80-meter long LPG carrier which, for the past two months, has been anchored off Phuket, Thailand while selling its cargo of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG)  According to a report in the Bangkok Post today, the vessel was worth approximately 600-million-baht prior to catching fire this afternoon.  In an incredible stroke of luck to the shipowner, and to the lone watch stander on board, the vessel had already offloading its entire cargo of LPG at the time of the incident.

Local firefighting assets were immediately rushed to the scene and the fire was out in approximately two hours according to reports.

Anchored less than one mile from the burning ship was the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and the guided missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay.

Image courtesy North Sea Boats

At the end of August, Indonesian composite shipbuilder, North Sea Boats launched one of the most unique warships in the world from their facility in East Java.  Measuring 63m in length, the KRI Klewang bears a similar look to the Austal USA-built LCS-2 when viewed from the bow, however the similarities don’t extend much further beyond the fact they are (were) both painted haze grey, and have three hulls.

Image courtesy North Sea Boats

With a wave-piercing hull form built of carbon fiber composite, and powered by 4 MAN Diesel engines, the KRI Klewang was a high performance machine and the result of two years of R&D by New Zealand naval architect firm, LOMOcean Design Ltd.

Unfortunately, this one-of-a-kind, USD $11.91 million vessel is no longer after a fire broke out on board a few days ago.

Click here to view the embedded video.

No details are available yet on how this blaze started.

Sea Moon, a 33,044 GT bulk carrier, image via Shipspotting

With a full cargo of coal destined for Karachi, Pakistan, the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Sea Moon was about 140 miles southwest of Bermuda when an explosion occurred in one of her cargo holds at 3:05pm on Friday.  One of the ship’s Filipino crewmembers was lost overboard during the incident, and subsequently recovered via the vessel’s fast rescue craft.

With the recovered sailor suffering full-body burns, the ship notified the Bermuda Maritime Operations Center announcing their intention to divert for medical evacuation and that their cargo was stable with no signs of fire.

In a statement by the Bermuda Marine Operations Center, ”The Sea Moon arrived off the east end of Bermuda at 2:45am on the morning of Saturday 29th September and local authorities boarded her in company with a doctor. The casualty was stretcher transferred to the pilot boat St David and conveyed to Ordnance Island where an ambulance was waiting to take him to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

The ship is presently at anchor 1.5 miles east of St David’s Lighthouse where she will remain until company representatives and surveyors have inspected her.”

Sea Moon is owned by Athens-based, Hellenic Star Shipping, was built in 2009 by Qingshan Shipyard, and is classed by Bureau Veritas.