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Death came early this year. The typhoon season has only just started and already, brightly coloured flop-flop rubber sandals are arriving on the coastlines of Sibuyan in the central Philippines. They are very small slippers because many children were among the 800 or so aboard the 1984-built 23,824 tonnes Sulpicio Lines ferry Princess Of The Stars that capsized on morning of June 21 in a typhoon known internationally as Fengshen and in the Philippines as Frank.

One can only say ‘or so’ because it is unlikely anyone will ever know exactly how many people were aboard. Passenger manifests are unreliable in a country where regulations are rarely enforced, even if they are supposedly adequate in the first place. In a grounding incident in 2007 a ferry had a manifest of a little more than two dozen people, the Philippine Coast Guard rescued more than a hundred. The true human cost of the Dona Paz disaster in 1987 remains unknown, except that it possibly exceeded 4,000.

Current known figures for the Princess Of The Stars are around 626 passengers, an unknown number of minors, and 212 crew. At the time of writing there are four confirmed dead and 34 known survivors.
Sulpicio Lines has a poor safety record. In addition to the Princess Of The Stars and the Dona Paz, other casualties include the Dona Marilyn in 1988 and the Princess of the Orient in 1998. The Philippine government has ordered it to stop operations and inspections of the company’s other vessels is underway. Volunteers against Crime and Corruption, VACC, has said it will file a class suit against Sulpicio Lines management.

The domestic ferry industry has a traditional safety problem: In 1994 the William Lines Cebu City collided with a Singaporean vessel, Kota Suria, and sank with the loss of 140 lives; Kimelody Cristy of Moreta Shipping caught fire and sank in 1995; in 1996: An overcrowded wooden ferry, ML Gretchen, capsizes close to shore of central Negros island, killing 54, including 31 children, and leaving 12 missing; Trans-Asia Shipping’s Asian South Korea, another ferry, sank in 1999;Maria Carmela, a ro-ro ferry owned by Montenegro Shipping, caught fire in 2002 with 2390 people on board of which 23 were confirmed dead and 27 missing;the wooden ferry Catalyn-D caught fire and sank in 2007 losing five lives out of 250 people on board. (A full list of incidents can be found HERE)

Despite the regularity of maritime incidents in Philippine waters there is no full-time independent maritime investigation agency in the Philippines. Marina, the country’s maritime regulatory body delegates its enforcement functions to the Philippine Coastguard, which allowed the vessel to leave Manila as the typhoon was approaching. Both agencies will conduct the investigation.
Philippine President Gloria Magapagal Arroyo has, as is usual in high-visibility incidents, ordered a board of inquiry to be convened but there is no legal requirement for any of its members to be qualified maritime casualty investigators and consists of Coast Guard officers, Marina officials and members or graduates of the government-own Philippine Merchant Marine Academy. A lawyer is required to be one of the members but he, or she, is not required to have expertise in maritime law.

The aim of the Board is to establish liability, safety issues are secondary. Despite that, not a single ferry company or ship owner has been brought to book in any incident in the Philippines.
Casualty investigation reports are not made accessible to the public.

International maritime investigators would like to bring the Philippines within the fold and help it develop a more realistic and effective investigative capability but the political will is lacking, which may not be unconnected with the high level connections between ferry companies, shipowners and the country’s legislators.

It is unlikely that the Philippines will respond to the new IMO code of conduct for maritime casualty investigation any time soon. Despite becoming a member in the mid-1960s the Philippines has yet to lodge a single maritime casualty investigation report with the IMO, as it is mandated to do for serious casualties under the terms of its membership, despite the recent election of a Filipino, Neil Ferrer, as IMO deputy secretary general.

Currently, fingers are being pointed in all directions. The vessel left Manila at about 8pm on Friday, 20th June as Typhoon Fengshen approached the islands. Storm Signal Number One, the lowest level warning, had been issued by the Pagasa, the country’s under-funded and under-equipped weather bureau.
Although the typhoon was not predicted to present a threat on the vessel’s route, typhoons are notoriously erratic. Although not expected to hit the main island of Luzon, by 11.30 the highest level warning was issued, Number Three, but by then the Princess Of The Seas was in the Visayas region still heading for Cebu.

The vessel was allowed to leave Manila because it was believed that she would only enter the periphery of typhoon, but the typhoon suddenly changed direction, putting the vessel directly in its path. It reached Sibuyan Island at around 7am.

According to reports, at about non on Saturday, 21st June, the ship’s main engine failed, but some survivors say the ship only slowed down as it encountered large waves. With winds of 73 miles an hour gusting up to 94 miles and hour the ship grounded off the coast of Sibuyan Island in Romblon province, tore a gash in her hull and took on water. The master, Captain Florencio Marimon, who is still missing, ordered all passengers to abandon the ferry, which capsized 15 minutes later.

Reportedly, few passengers were able to board the 14 liferafts, a number of which flipped over in the large swells and high winds, and about half were able to don lifejackets before jumping off the ship.
Later, police in the town of San Fernando in Romblon province reported that the vessel was two or three kilometres offshore, upside down off the coast of the town, a hole visible in the hull.

History suggests that the Princess Of The Stars tragedy will have little effect on the safety of Philippine ferry passengers or their crew. The Philippines will continue to ignore its obligations to the IMO and to the security of its travelling public because there isn’t the political will to do otherwise no matter how many children’s rubber slippers wash up on its beaches.

This post was written by Bob Couttie of Maritime Accident Casebook. Bob Couttie has written for a number of maritime industry publications, including the prestigious Lloyd’s List International daily newspaper and Lloyd’s Ship Manager magazine. His reportage on problems with ship’s officer certification examinations in the Philippines in the late 1990s influenced the adoption of computerized examinations for ship officers by the country’s Professional Regulatory Commission.

You can read more of Bob’s articles on gCaptain (LINK) and on his blog (LINK).

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 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.

The U.K.’s Daily Mail has the story of Second Mate David Blair, the lucky Merchant Mariner who was pulled off the Titanic just prior to her infamous voyage.

(Note: We are republishing this post on Today, the 96th Anniversary of the tragedy.)

Blair was replaced with the more experienced officer Charles Lightroller, Chief Mate of the Olympic, by White Star just four days prior to the tragic events and hours before departure. In the rushed turnover he made a seemly small but potentially critical mistake.

For those readers not familiar with the duties of a merchant officer, turnover is a critical time aboard ship. Today most mariners work an equal time-on time-off scheduled. For example, you may work 3 months aboard a ship then have the next 3 months off meaning there are two officers assigned to the ship in each position. The turnover between the two, however, is often a hurried process. The industry has built in many ways to avoid problems but the fact is you have one person excited to go home and another just starting a long hitch and sometimes “things” are missed.

So the day Blair signed-off he likely briefed Lightroller on his duties and operational specifics then gave him written notes and any items needed for the job. The mistake? Blair accidentally took the key to the binocular locker home with him.

The Daily Mail tells us;

Blair’s rush to leave Titanic he carried this key off with him in his pocket and forgot to hand it to his replacement, Charles Lightoller.

“Had Lightoller had the key then there probably would have been a pair of binoculars in the crows nest.

“It is supposition but, in lookout Fleet’s own words, they would have seen the iceberg sooner with the binoculars.

“It is the key that had the potential to save the Titanic.”

Senator Smith, chair of the inquiry, asked Fleet: “Suppose you had glasses … could you have seen this black object [the iceberg] at a greater distance?”

Fleet replied: “We could have seen it a bit sooner.”

Asked “How much sooner?”, he said: “Well, enough to get out of the way.”

I must stop the story and make it clear this mistake was just that ….a small error… therefore should Blair be blamed for the accident? Of course not. While some point to the ship’s excessive speed, the vessel’s design or the positioning of the ship’s compass as the cause of the incident the facts clearly show the titanic sunk as a direct result of the accident chain. In other words the titanic sunk, not due to one large error but a combination of small errors that linked together caused the tragic circumstances. Remove one small link in the chain and the incident is avoided.

It is interesting to note that a string of small errors caused by human error is the cause of most large maritime incidents. The lesson to be learned….. next time you make a mistake aboard ship listen for the voice in the back of your mind and quickly ask yourself; is this an isolated incident or indication of larger problems?

Ship incidents caused by Error Chains;

• How Ship Captain’s Avoid Incidents
• Pasha Bulker - Part 1 & Part 2
• Tampa Skyway Bridge Disaster
• Exxon Valdez
• Empress of the North
• Cell Phone Causes Ship Grounding

(This article was originally posted Oct 2007)

MS Wilhelm Gustloff, 9,000 lives lost in 1945

With a death toll six times greater than the Titanic, new light has been shed on MS Wilhelm Gustloff, as a result a TV series that aired on Germany’s ZDF Channel last night.

The Independent is reporting:

“There was this sea of adult heads floating all around me, but alongside them there were hundreds of children’s legs half sticking up in the air. Their heads were under water,” Mr Schön, now 82, said. “They all drowned. Nobody realized that a child’s head is heavier than its legs.”

The Independent post is here.

An estimated 9,000 passengers and crew, fleeing East Prussia, perished (5,000 children) as a result of the the sinking of MS Wilhelm Gustloff back in January, 1945. Gustloff was carrying 10,000 refugees packed into every corner of the ship. Struck by three Soviet torpedoes, she took only 70 minutes to sink.

During her life, MS Wilhelm Gustloff saw many incarnations: Cruise ship, Hospital ship, Navy ship, and Rescue ship.

The sinking (from Gustloff website) Sometime before 8PM , the first officer on the S-13 spots lights in the distance. Marinesko promptly makes his way to the conning tower. When the snow clears for a moment he spots in his words “the silhouette of an [enormous] ocean liner, even [with its] lights showing”. Over the next two hours, Marinesko shadows the Wilhelm Gustloff, fine tuning his plan of attack. His crew on board begin to sense that their luck is about to change.

MS Wilhelm Gustloff in better days

Her history is well chronicled 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

Fred Fry’s Maritime Monday points us to this photo of the M/V New Flame by ship spotter Neill Rush. GoGibralta tells us: 

The Wreck of the MV New Flame slipped further under the waves off Europa Point in the early hours of this morning in heavy seas.    

As a result of stormy weather conditions over the weekend, ëNew Flameísí No.5 cargo hold flooded, causing a loss of buoyancy, which has resulted in the stern section of the vessel settling on the seabed in an upright position. All that now remains visible above the sea surface is the vessels navigation bridge, aft mast, and the upper part of her funnel.As this was not unexpected, Titan the firm contracted for the wreck removal operation, had already put in place precautionary measures before the onset of the stormy weather. These measures which consisted of a number of heavy lift chains being placed under the hull of the vessel will eventually enable the section of the vessel which flooded, to be lifted from the seabed once operations re-commence. [Continue Reading →]

gCaptain’s all time favorite TV commercial and worst nightmare.

Funniest video of last year! Thanks, Berlitz

(Is your company blocking access? View the file here: LINK )

The Spirit of Shacketon - Aboard the M/S Explorer

by Michael Morrissey

On 11 November 2007 Sola and I departed from Ushuaia, Argentina aboard the M/S Explorer on a cruise meant to follow in the wake of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endeavor. Little did we know how closely we would follow Sir Ernest.

The first time I went to Antarctica was in 2004. I had a few free days before I was returning to Bangkok after being in Bariloche, Argentina to celebrate Simon Bonython’s sixtieth birthday. Prior to leaving Bangkok, Gary Heager, a well-traveled friend, had suggested I visit Ushuaia to earn the bragging rights for having visited the southernmost city in the world.

While in Ushuaia I took a guided tour to see a beaver lodge. Beavers, in Ushuaia? Yes, but introduced from Canada by enterprising Argentines after World War II for their pelts. Predator-less beavers left unchecked have become an environmental disaster.

At the end of the beaver hike, Alicia Petit, a local tour agent offered me a cruise on an icebreaker sailing to Antarctica but I had to be able to leave in two days. I explained to her I had left all my belongings in Buenos Aires and I had reservations to return to Bangkok with visits in Santiago, San Francisco and Tokyo as part of the return. I said if she could change all my reservations and secure my things in BA I’d go. She called me fifteen minutes later and it was all done. I had cell phone then. Alicia became the link to sailing on the M/S Explorer.

I’ve stayed in contact with Alicia and each year she contacts me with Antarctic cruise offers. Simon, Jon Olson and I were first offered an Antarctic trip while touring Bhutan in 2002. We all agreed it was something we wanted to do. Unfortunately for them, by the time Alicia told me about this trip that year they had both left Buenos Aires.

Every year since then, Jon, Simon and I have discussed contacting Alicia to plan an Antarctic cruise. It wasn’t surprising In October, when Alicia contacted me to offer space on the first cruise of the 2007 season, that we all decided to go. It wasn’t too long after this that Jon remembered he had a prior commitment and could not go. Simon’s business required him to stay in Bangkok. Simon, a fellow avid photographer, really wanted to go on this adventure and said he would make every effort to be there.

Alicia reached me while I was photographing the Colorado fall color. Later that month I met up with Sola Morrissey, my daughter, in San Francisco for dinner. I mentioned to her I could not find anyone to go with me and asked if she would be interested. She had recently started working for Architecture for Humanity and wasn’t sure it was good timing, but thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She would check with her employer.

Sola and I discussed including visits to impoverished areas around South America that would tie into her work. The two of us have traveled together before in Europe, Morocco, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Japan; she is a wonderful travel companion. Kaze, my son , was in the process of getting advanced pilot training, so he couldn’t go.

Simon was able to get away just days before the M/S Explorer (not a Microsoft product) departed from Ushuaia. Jon had (that’s past tense) been kicking himself for not going, that is until he heard the news on the radio.

Thanksgiving 2007 was the night I put the Antarctica maxim to the test. The maxim goes “Below 40 degrees south latitude, there is no law. Below 50 degrees south latitude, there is no God.”

We were at 62 degrees 24 minutes South and 57 degrees 16 minutes west, when Sola woke me and Swedish Captain Bengt Witman told us to dress warm before proceeding to our emergency assemble point.

© Copyright Michael Morrissey, All Rights Reserved.

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Article by Michael Morrissey is considered one of the new generation of adventure and travel photographers. Based in Bangkok, Thailand with a passion for travel, Michael got hooked on photography while driving a bus from Istanbul to Katmandu in the 70’s; an obsession briefly interrupted with a twenty year career in business. You can view his photography at: www.mjmorrissey.com

You can read more of Michael’s harrowing tale HERE.

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

Breaking weather news from Russia. Bloomberg tells us;

An oil spill from a tanker that sank in a storm in waters between Russia and Ukraine threatens an “environmental catastrophe,” said Vladimir Slivyak, head of the Moscow-based Ecodefense group.

The Volgoneft-139 leaked 1,300 tons of fuel oil into the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, a Russian Transport Ministry spokeswoman, who declined to be identified, said in Moscow. Four other ships sank in yesterday’s storm that produced six-meter (20-foot) waves, state broadcaster Russia Today reported. Two sailors are dead and 23 are missing, it said.

“The effect will be very serious for the whole marine ecosystem, including fish, because of the high toxicity of oil products,” Slivyak said by telephone in Moscow yesterday. It will take several months to remove the oil on the surface, while the oil that sank will be “very hard” to clear, he added. Continue Reading…

1,300 tons converts to approximately 560,000 gallons of fuel oil or 10 times that which was spilt last week by the Cosco Busan in San Francisco Bay. No specifics yet but maybe Robin Storm can enlighten us.

CNN has some impressive video as well: LINK