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Maritime Global Net tells us:

Cruise West’s Spirit of Glacier Bay is reported to have run aground in Glacier Bay. The US Coastguard is attending the incident. There are no injuries and hull integrity has not been breached, although a boom has been deployed as a precaution. The reason for the grounding is still unknown. Passengers are being transferred to the departure port of Juneau, and the vessel is expected to re-float at high tide.

UPDATE:

Ship Grounded - Glacier Bay Alaska from John Konrad on Vimeo.

In a feature appropriately titled “Worst Case Scenario” Popular Mechanics brings us “The Coast Guard’s Most Extreme Rescue - Alaska Ranger“. They write:

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Alaska Ranger. 5, 3, 5, 3 North, 1, 6, 9, 5, 8 West… We are flooding, taking on water in our rudder room.”

It was 2:52 am on March 23, Easter morning, when Coast Guard Station Kodiak picked up the distress call from a point almost 800 miles west, in Alaska’s frigid Bering Sea.

“Roger. Good copy on position… Request to know number onboard, over.”

After a static-filled pause, the answer came through loud and clear: “Number of persons: 47.”

Capt. Peter Jacobsen was in the crowded wheelhouse of the 189-ft. fishing vessel. When the trawler’s emergency alarm had first sounded about an hour before, crew members descended below decks to see water rising fast in the ship’s stern compartments. They had pulled out a pump, but the effort soon looked futile. Now Jacobsen, 65, a veteran captain who had been fishing in the Bering Sea for 23 years, was making calls to his ship’s sister vessels, repeating the coordinates of the Ranger’s position 120 miles west of the Aleutian Island port of Dutch Harbor.

Be sure to visit our previous Alaska Ranger Coverage including commentary by Kennebec Captain titled “Sinking of the Alaska Ranger - Fishing Master vs Captain“. Then read Popular Mechanics full article which can be found HERE.

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INTERESTING LINKS:

• Interview With A Helicopter Rescue Team
• Top 10 Coast Guard Rescue Videos
• Full Alaska Ranger Coverage

MayDay Call:

 

 Alaska Ranger Mayday - Fishing Boat Sinking Offshore Alaska: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Juneau Empire is reporting:

A cruise ship scraped the bottom of the Tracy Arm fjord Wednesday morning, forcing its crew to cut short its trip and call the U.S. Coast Guard for assistance.

The Spirit of Alaska called the Coast Guard around 8 a.m. Wednesday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read said.

The boat is owned by Seattle-based Cruise West, which says on its Web site that the 143-foot boat has a “shallow draft” that makes for “optimum wildlife viewing.”

There were 41 passengers on board and 22 crew members, Read said. He said there were no reported injuries.

After hitting bottom, the boat anchored and waited for an inspector from the Coast Guard and a commercial diver to survey the damage to the boat, Read said.

He said the Coast Guard had dispatched two boats and a helicopter to assist the boat. A tugboat was scheduled to pull the Spirit of Alaska back to Juneau on Wednesday evening, according to the Coast Guard.

A spokesman for Cruise West said Wednesday afternoon that the Spirit of Alaska was on the second day of a seven-day trip that was to start and end in Juneau.

The complete Juneau Empire post is here.

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.

The fishing vessel Alaska Ranger, which sank last month west of Dutch Harbor had aboard both a captain and a fishing master. Tragically neither survived the sinking. Some of the testimony from crew members has been regarding the relationship between the two. From the Seattle PI coverage of the hearings in Seattle on the sinking of the Alaska Ranger:

Crewman David Hull also told the panel that he believes that the “fish masters” — crew members representing the fish buyer, in many cases Japanese-held companies, responsible for maximizing the catch — often countermanded ship captains working for the Ranger’s owner, Seattle-based Fishing Company of Alaska.

At the company, Hull said, vessel captains can be fired if they don’t follow directions given by the fish masters.

“I don’t want anyone to underestimate the power the Japanese (fish masters) have at FCA,” Hull said. “Honestly, the fish master basically runs the ship. That’s how it stands,” he added.

The Seattle times reported in an earlier article, that crewmembers interviewed testified that:

the relationship between Konno and a previous skipper of the Alaska Ranger was fraught with tension over vessel speeds through ice.

The article reports that the fishing master and the captain at one time had a “yelling match” regarding vessel speed in the ice.

Fishing vessels in Alaska, a demanding, sometime dangerous environment, are faced with balancing results, catching fish and delivering them to port, vs risk, pushing crew and vessel to the limit. How often does this result in yelling matches at sea, fishing master vs captain?

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This post was written by Kennebec Captain who is Master of a large Ro-Ro and graduate of Alaska Maritime Academy where he attended classes at all four campuses: Bering Sea, Aleutian Island, South East and the Gulf. He can also be found at his blog Kennebec Captain.

An engine room fire at 12:31 this morning forced an evacuation of Queen of the West.

From a Coast Guard Media Release:

SEATTLE - The Coast Guard, state and local authorities have offloaded the passengers and non-essential personnel from the Majestic Cruise Line passenger vessel, Queen of The West, after it suffered an engine fire earlier this morning.

The Queen of The West was beached in a controlled manner in the vicinity of Maryhill State Park, where the passengers were offloaded safely over the vessel’s bow ramp.

The 124 passengers were transported by bus to Skamania Lodge, Ore.

One crewmember became wet while fighting the fire, and was taken to a local hospital after exhibiting signs of hypothermia. Three of the crewmembers were checked and released on scene for smoke inhalation.

The vessel owner plans to tow the Queen of The West to the Port of Klickitat, Wash., just upstream of The Dalles Dam, with a crew of 26 essential personnel. There they will prepare the vessel for a further tow to Sundial Marine in Troutdale, Ore., for repairs.

Klickitat County emergency services personnel managed the disembarkation and processing of passengers.

The Washington Department of Ecology organized precautionary shoreline protection operations along the river to address the risk of any oil pollution from the disabled vessel.

The cause of the engine room fire is under investigation.

Cruise Critic tells us:

The fire was noticed last night around midnight and the Coast Guard was notified. The incident occurred while the boat was sailing between The Dalles and John Day Locks (map); the boat was towed to Maryhill where the passengers were safely evacuated at around 5 a.m. Three crewmembers were treated and released for smoke inhalation by paramedics on the scene.

Queen of the West is undergoing assessment at this time to determine what caused the fire. Passengers were transported to local hotels; the remainder of the cruise has been canceled and they are being assisted in their travel arrangements by Majestic America Line staff.

A Seattle Times article is here.

Coast Guard audio, of this morning’s call from the John Day Dam control room.

One Passenger’s account of the incident.

Ed. note: It was Majestic America’s Empress of the North that grounded less than a year ago in Alaska. The gCaptain post is here:Empress Of The North while our Majestic Line posts are here: Majestic Cruise Line.

Seven Seas Mariner in Skagway, Ak

…not really, the cadence actually sounds more alluring than the job. I’d like to see the old Love Boat series glamorize this position. Come to think of it, the love boat engineers were never seen or heard from.

The State of Alaska has legislated that large commercial passenger vessels entering the marine waters of the state is required to have a marine engineer licensed by the United States Coast Guard hired or retained by the department on board the vessel to act as an independent observer for the purpose of monitoring state and federal requirements pertaining to marine discharge and pollution requirements and to insure that passengers, crew and residents at ports are protected from improper sanitation, health and safety
practices.

Here’s an excerpt from MarineLink.com’s post: Alaska Selects Crowley to Monitor Cruise ShipsThe contract, valued at up to $4 million per fiscal year, directs Crowley to recruit, hire, train, and organize the logistics of placing up to 35 Ocean Rangers on board cruise ships this season to monitor their wastewater discharges and compliance with other pollution requirements for the state. Ocean Rangers are required as part of a new law adopted by the citizens of Alaska - the Alaska Cruise Ship Initiative- in 2006.

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd

Wired Magazine is featuring a post on the salvage of the car carrier Cougar Ace. Here are the first two paragraphs of the post:

Latitude 48° 14 North. Longitude 174° 26 West.

Almost midnight on the North Pacific, about 230 miles south of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. A heavy fog blankets the sea. There’s nothing but the wind spinning eddies through the mist.

Out of the darkness, a rumble grows. The water begins to vibrate. Suddenly, the prow of a massive ship splits the fog. Its steel hull rises seven stories above the water and stretches two football fields back into the night. A 15,683-horsepower engine roars through the holds, pushing 55,328 tons of steel. Crisp white capital letters — COUGAR ACE — spell the ship’s name above the ocean froth. A deep-sea car transport, its 14 decks are packed with 4,703 new Mazdas bound for North America. Estimated cargo value: $103 million.

The post, titled, “Techno-Cowboys of the Deep Sea: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace,” chronicles the mustering of a salvage crew from across the globe, the challenge of the salvage, and the death of a team member. The article is replete with Coast Guard footage and diagrams. Reading like a Spike Walker book, this piece gives the non mariner a unique look into the forces that makes our work elusive.

Don’t miss this compelling read by Joshua Davis and stunning infographics from Dan Foley.

The full Wired Magazine post:

• Article
• Video
• Captain’s Journal
• Salvage Team Bios

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd

A short clip from our friends at the USCG;

Kodiak, Alaska-Jan 17, 2008–An Air Station Kodiak C-130 crew perform drop training. USCG video by PA1 Kurt Fredrickson.

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Seattle based Trident Seafood’s 175′ freighter Dolphin with 34,000 gallons of diesel aboard grounded south of Wrangel AK. Dolphin spilled an unknown amount of fuel.

The Juneau Empire story is HERE and video news coverage HERE.

Thanks to BitterEnd for the find!