gCaptain.com

David Hindin, a gCaptain reader from the San Francisco Bay Area pointed us to this image and audio file from the New York Times. They tell us;

A small, historic cruise ship with an imperfect security record was listing dangerously after it struck ice in Antarctic waters today, with 154 passengers and crew members evacuated in a flotilla of lifeboats and inflatable boats, the cruise operator and coast guards said.

Late into the day, the small red and white ship — named the Explorer but known affectionately as “the little red ship” — was listing steeply to starboard, nearly on its side, awash in ice floes and steely gray water. The vessel — on an expedition to trace the doomed route of the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton — sent out a distress signal in the middle of the night (5:24 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time) after it began to take in water through “a fist-sized hole,” said Dan Brown, a spokesman for G.A.P. Adventures, the Toronto-based tour operator that owns and operates the ship. He said the “running assumption” is that it hit an iceberg. Water began to trickle into a cabin and eventually flooded the engine room, causing the ship to lose power.

The accident occurred well north of the Antarctic Circle in an island chain that is part of the Antarctic peninsula, which juts close to South America and has seen sharp warming of temperatures in recent years.As the satellite distress signal was being picked up by coast guard stations in Britain; Norfolk, Va.; and Ushuaia, Argentina, the ship’s 100 passengers — 14 of them American, 24 British, 17 Dutch, 12 Canadian and a smattering of other nationalities— were awakened and told to don warm clothes and life preservers, said Mark Clark, a spokesman for Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which was one of the first authorities to receive the distress signal. They clambered down ladders on the ship’s side to board lifeboats.

Mr. Clark said they were taken aboard a small research vessel, the National Geographic Endeavour, that was nearby, before they were transferred to a Norwegian cruise line.

You can continue reading this NYTimes story by clicking HERE.

 

  An interview with Jon Bowermaster, who was on the scene: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(Note: We made an error, the above photo is of the EXPLORER II)

In breaking news the BBC tells us;

More than 150 tourists and crew have been rescued off Argentina from an expedition ship, after it hit ice.

The M/S Explorer began listing close to King George Island in the Antarctic Ocean, near the South Shetland Islands.

Susan Hayes, of Gap Adventures, which owns the ship, said some 100 passengers and 54 crew members were evacuated to lifeboats and then to another ship.

She said the vessel left Ushuaia on Argentina’s southern tip on 11 November on a 19-day trip to the Drake Passage.

The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said it was informed at 0524 GMT on Friday of the incident involving the 2,400-tonne vessel. read more…

Traditionally lifeboat davits were tested using sand bags and a crew of strong AB’s. More recently water bags began to be used making the job considerably easier… you simply place the empty bag in the lifeboat, fill it with water, test the davit, then open the bag’s drain valve (do’t foget the lifeboat’s drain plug!).

While not revolutionary Eurodam News, a blog documenting Holland America Line’s newbuild project, gives us the details on shipyard testing of new davits;

For a tender it is:
Maximum number of persons on board: 150
Weight of maximum number of persons: 150 x 75 kg (165.35 pounds) = 11,250 kg (24,802 pounds)
Fully equipped lifeboat: 12,350 kg (27,227 pounds)
Total: 23,600 kg (52,029 pounds)

The test is done at 1.1 times the weight they will carry to ensure the complete construction is solidly connected to the side of the ship (the davit arms themselves are tested at the factory at 2.2 times the weight they will ever have to carry — so much stronger).

The yard connected to the lower blocks a big steel box that is filled with water so it totals the desired weight: the weight of the box and the water 23,600 kg (52,029 pounds) multiplied by 1.1 = 25,960 kg (57,232 pounds).

The weight is read by the crane driver, who has a strain gauge in the control cab of the crane. He radios the information down to the people on deck. The crane then slacks its hoisting wire so the davits take the strain. This is called the static test.

For the dynamic test, the manual brake on the winch is lifted and the box is lowered the same way you would lower the lifeboat (or tender, in this case). The lowering speed is then measured, since this needs to be between .75 and 1.30 meters (2.5 and 4.3 feet) per minute. If the boat lowers too slowly or too fast, the centrifugal speed control brake needs adjusting.

Then, after about six seconds the manual brake is thrown back — full force — and the lowering stops. This is rather spectacular, with the box bouncing up and down, and the bulkheads where the sheaves are connected flexing back and forth. Nobody envies the man who has to operate the brake!