gCaptain.com

We don’t generally post press releases on the blog here, but we have been so fascinated by some of Wärtsilä’s previous work that we thought this is worth a post.

These are just a few excerpts of the September 23 press release from Wärtsilä:

Wärtsilä has received major orders for its recently established Wärtsilä Ship Design unit. The orders were received from customers in China, India and Germany. The Ship Design unit was set up following the acquisitions of the ship design companies Vik-Sandvik and Schiffko. The most recent acquisition, the Singaporean based Conan Wu & Associates will also be part of the Ship Design unit.

The orders call for Wärtsilä to design a Deepwater Engineering Survey Vessel, a Multi-Purpose Support Vessel, a Diving Support Vessel, and an Emergency Towing Vessel. Each of these contracts comes as a result of successful bids to design sophisticated tonnage.

Now let’s hear about the vessel’s.

The Deepwater Engineering Survey Vessel design is for China Oilfield Services Ltd, and represents a 4300-dwt vessel capable of drilling operating at deep water for geotechnical surveys and geophysical surveys. To date, most of China’s oil exploration has been in relatively shallow waters, but there is now a need to probe deeper. [Continue Reading →]

We don’t have the full details on how this yacht found its way to the beach but the photos do a great job in describing the salvage operation!

You have all done well on the previous quizes so here’s a challenge. What’s featured in the picture above?

UPDATE:

Ignacio-Wenley Palacios correctly identified the photo as marine salvage equipment known as Titan Pullers. The company’s website says:

Titan’s 300-tonne linear hydraulic pullers otherwise known as “Titan Pullers” is shown above. The pullers have been used in a variety of manners including dragging vessels off the beach or onto barges, parbuckling vessels, rolling vessels onto barges or onto breakwaters or to vertically lift sunken vessels. Several examples of relevant “Titan Puller” jobs are provided on the bottom of this page to illustrate the versatility and capacity of these machines and Titan’s ability to successfully apply skill and innovation to accomplish challenging wreck removal jobs.

Here is a photo fo the pullers in action:

Read more about these masters of disasters HERE.

Via CargoLaw

BBC News tells us:

Accident investigators have identified 12 other ships that could suffer the same failure as the container ship MSC Napoli which was beached off Devon and salvaged live on television with explosives.

Urgent strengthening of the ships has been ordered by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB).

The MAIB blamed the MSC Napoli’s design after a series of large waves left a crack in her hull in January last year.

Vertical cracks could be seen in the hull below the waterline on the port and starboard sides, and the ship’s master assessed that the vessel had “broken her back.”

A “wall of oily water” shot through the cracked hull of the ship before it was safely abandoned, the report said.

The hull failure was due to “lack of buckling strength in the engine room region,” said the MAIB report.

More than 1,500 similar ships were screened following the incident, of which 12 unidentified ships required strengthening work “to bring them up to acceptable safety standards,” said the report.

Stephen Meyer, chief inspector of the MAIB said: “The MAIB has worked closely with the world’s leading classification societies to identify any other vessels that may have the same design flaw as the MSC Napoli. Continue Reading…

You can view the Full MAIB report courtesy of the BBC  HERE.

Early last week the BBC also told us of the operation to recycle the ship:

Now the front section of the MSC Napoli is two weeks away from the smelters’.

The firm that built the Titanic - Harland and Wolff - landed the task of dismantling the cargo ship, which had to be beached on the Devon coast.

At the time there were incredible scenes of people rushing to the beach to take advantage of the unexpected bounty of the sea, in the shape of containers of motorcycles and other goods washed ashore.

The Belfast shipyard became one of the benefactors of the sad destruction of the ocean-going behemoth, keeping 80 pairs of hands busy at the yard.

It has been an interesting assignment for the crews, an estimated five cubic tonnes of waste oil needing removal became an actual 100 tonnes, adding to the workload of staff.

Now the cutting up of the superstructure is nearing completion and is expected to end up leaving 60,000 tonnes of ship-building grade steel, with the exception of one piece that was auctioned off for the BBC’s Children in Need charity. Continue Reading…

They also have photos of the scrapping operation HERE.

Finally, Maritime Accident Casebook shares with us MSC Napoli Crew Knew The Drill, they write:

“It was evident during the investigation that the master had placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of safety drills and the maintenance of lifesaving equipment, and that the preparation and lowering of lifeboats had been well-practiced in accordance with company policy.”

No-one was hurt during the evacuation from the ship, and that may be owed to the seriousness with which the master took safety procedures and drills.

The abandon ship did not go without a hitch, “the crewman sitting nearest the forward painter release could not pull the release pin sufficiently far to allow the painter to disengage. He was squeezed between two other crew and his movement was restricted by his immersion suit. The painter was eventually cut by the chief engineer, who had a knife, and was able to reach the painter via the lifeboat’s forward hatch.” Continue Reading…

Here is the ship arriving in Belfast:

.

Here is the underwater survey on the damaged section of the ship:

.
Here is the MSC Napoli in Photo:

For our previous related discussion click on our MSC Napoli tag.

With over nine years of planning completed Texas A&M’s training ship the Texas Clipper was prepared to start her new life as an artificial reef. Texas Parks and Wildlife writes; “A small armada of boats carried curious visitors to the site as officials from the USCG and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service observed the reefing. A helicopter hovered overhead to capture an aerial view of the event for the media and those who could not venture onto the Gulf waters. A number of former crew members of the ship made it through the rough seas aboard chartered and private vessels to witness the transition to her fourth and final life as home to sea life and a destination for divers and anglers.”

Only there was a problem…

Today’s Houston Chronicle tells us;

A World War II ship purposely sunk in the Gulf of Mexico to create an artificial reef has tipped onto its side, blocking access to the interior for fish and divers.

The sinking capped years of problems, including an unplanned sinking near Beaumont and a $600,000 cleanup of hazardous chemicals.

State officials were hoping the Clipper would become a destination for divers and boost local tourism by an estimated $30 million per year. It was meant to stand upright so divers and fish could explore the 80-foot high, 473-foot long ship by swimming through decks and cabins.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Aaron Reed said it was unclear what caused the ship to tip. The sinking of the ship has already cost the state about $4 million.

Tim O’Leary, owner of a dive shop on the coast, had expected the wreck to keep his business busy into December. But the ship is on its side now, more suited for skilled cave divers. Continue Reading…

Links:

Sea-Fever has Video footage of the Texas Clipper Sinking

Texas Clipper Ship Project Homepage

Texas Clipper - Online Tour

Ships2Reefs Program

Today Fred Fry linked to an interesting post containing photos, video and the stories behind some of the world’s largest iron graveyards. One of the more interesting entries is of the bay of nouadhibou, mauritania. Fogonazos tells us:

The Bay of Nouadhibou, seven miles south from the Mauritanian city, hides one the biggest ship cemeteries in the world. There are more than 300 wrecks around the harbor, resting for years and coming from all nations.

A brief walk through Google Maps will show you hundreds of skeletons piled here and there, at the biggest collection of rusty giant ships you could ever imagine.

However, there isn’t any magic or mystery in this squalid place. For years, Mauritanian harbor officers were so corrupt, that they let ships be discarded in the harbor in exchange of some cash. Discarding a ship is quite expensive for a company, so during the decades, lots of unwanted ships ended up in the harbor of Nouadibou. Read More…

Apparently some of these ships are inhabited by some of the less fortunate Mauritians Mauritanians.

For the original story and information on other interesting transportation graveyards CLICK HERE.

Links:

• Video of Nouadhibou Bay

After pouring over the media reports and available facts I’ve decided the story can best be said by our resident maritime experts, gCaptian’s r. Here is MarkL’s insightful and humorous take:

Observations of a relative indicates that the second gale ( which was more from the south and which coincided with a reasonably high tide) pushed her off the reef and 200-300 yards north, into even shallower water.

This will make life interesting for the salvage effort [being performed by Svitzer Salvage, a division of A.P. Moller-Maersk], as she is now between the shoreline and a line of shallow reefs offshore.

If this effort succeeds in such an exposed spot in winter, it will be one of those quiet epics of salvage we hear so little about in general media. A joke presently being bandied about Newcastle is that the city should forbid salvage, buy the wreck and convert it into ‘apartments with a 360 degree ocean view to sell to idiots from Sydney’. [Continue Reading →]