A Papua-New Guinea (PNG) flagged passenger ship/RoRo sunk yesterday in heavy seas off the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea.  350 people are reported to have been on board the vessel.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the MV Rabaul Queen was believed to have sunk while traveling from Kimbe to Lae, in Papua New Guinea, at around 7.30am yesterday morning, Canberra time.

“Our hearts go out to those affected by the sinking of the MV Rabaul Queen,” Mr Rudd said.

“I spoke to my counterpart, PNG Foreign Minister Ano Pala, earlier today to inform him that Australia stands ready to offer all necessary assistance.”

Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard

The Australia Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is currently providing assistance to Papua New Guinea and eight merchant vessels remain on scene.  238 survivors have so far been recovered by five of the ships.

Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke with reporters in Melbourne yesterday:

“This is obviously a major tragedy.  Given the likely very high loss of life here, I think when this news comes to the attention of Australians around the country they will be thinking about the people of PNG as they respond to this tragedy.”

It is expected that the five ships will passage towards Lae overnight. Arrangements for transferring survivors will be made by PNG authorities.

Earlier reports of fine weather conditions have been contradicted by vessels on scene. There are currently strong north-westerly winds at 40kts, and a five-metre sea swell.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Capt Nurur Rahman, from the National Maritime Safety Authority, said he was hopeful of finding more people alive in the tropical waters.

“People have survived for up to two days,” he told the Associated Press news agency.  He also added that the number of people who were on board may be lower than previously reported – perhaps at about 300.

*UPDATE*
AMSA continues to provide ongoing assistance to the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) with coordinating search efforts.

The five vessels, with a total of 238 survivors on board, proceeded to Lae last night, with the first vessel arriving shortly after 1:00am AEDT.

The passengers are being transferred to Lae by the port’s tug, under the coordination of PNG authorities. In addition to the three merchant vessels on scene, four aircraft will participate in this morning’s search – two local helicopters, AMSA’s dedicated search and rescue Dornier aircraft from Cairns and a Careflight lear jet from Townsville.

Today’s search will commence at first light (approx. 7:00am AEDT).

A newly-built anchor handling tug "HYSY 682" partially sinks at the dock, (image via Jakarta Post)

BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- A deepwater oil exploration vessel belonging to China Oilfield Services Ltd. (2883.HK) sank Saturday during construction at a dock in east China, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange Wednesday.

The company is the listed rig builder and drilling-equipment arm of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CEO), China’s largest offshore oil producer.

Water entered the supply vessel’s hold while it was under construction at a dock in Nantong city in Jiangsu province around 2 p.m. Saturday. China Oilfield said no environmental pollution resulted, adding that it is investigating the accident.

The company also said Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Co., the shipbuilder, should be held accountable for losses.

China Oilfield had invested CNY740 million ($117 million) in the vessel’s construction.

Cnooc last month said it may begin independently drilling its first deep-sea gas exploration well in the South China Sea by early 2012. It isn’t immediately clear if Saturday’s accident would affect those plans.

Cnooc has been under pressure after a string of oil leaks in 2011. In December, a gas leak at one of its pipelines in the South China Sea forced it to close some platforms.

The company’s Penglai 19-3 oil field, a joint venture with ConocoPhillips China, and the Jinzhou 9-3 West oil field were also sites of oil spills last year.

-By Chuin-Wei Yap, Dow Jones Newswires

The initial accident:
First, there is lots of speculation on some sort of electrical failure or explosion which impacted the propulsion of the vessel. I think this speculation is merely the result of passengers being told this as an excuse at the time of the accident. I think that any electrical failure or ‘loud bang’ that has been widely reported was the result of the initial grounding.

Passenger statements that I have read all seem to lack a period of time between this alleged electrical failure and the grounding. Given the lack of time, for this to have been a contributing factor, would have meant that the vessel was in such close quarters that a mere interruption in propulsion power was enough to ground the ship. That seems unlikely. Also, given the damage to the hull, it appears that the vessel was traveling in a straight line when it ran aground. So for this theory to hold true, the ship would have been about to turn, to avoid this outcropping, or the vessel would have turned into a new course and then run a straight course, that resulted in the grounding. Again, not likely.

Some statements note that they hit something that was not charted. I do not find this a credible excuse if combined with the comment of a failure in the engine room. Interesting in that the passengers have come ashore with stories of electrical problems and the crew appear to be blaming the accuracy of the charts. I suspect that the chart just might have been accurate, and the crew miscalculated the real estate that they were occupying on the chart. The grounding itself is the cause of the electrical problems. Keep in mind that these vessels are so large, that the GPS mark does not tell the whole story. What kind of position display did they have on the bridge? Did it accurately display the vessel on the chart? Lots of coverage seem to view the final resting place of the vessel as where it hit the rocks, but my understanding is that the accident happened further offshore. The stories that the Captain wanted to pass close to the island are giving the impression that the initial grounding happened at the island where in the details it appears that this happened on the way to Giglio.

I see comments regarding the damage to the hull on the port side and that the damage on the submerged starboard side must be as bad. I suspect that the exposed damage is the damage from the initial grounding. The opening in the hull is massive and in some photos you can clearly see that the inside of the ship was open to the sea. At least large enough for a person to climb through. Open enough to immediately flood that compartment. Even once the ship listed enough to put the hole above the surface, the water that came in was still inside, denying the vessel the bouncy of that compartment as well as reducing the stability of the vessel due to free surface effect. I think that if there is damage on the starboard side, that it would have been inflicted later.

Concerning the evacuation:
First, despite all the complaints of chaos and difficultly in loading and launching the lifeboats, the port side (the high side) of the vessel is draped with lifeboat falls of successfully launched boats (It appears that boat 6 is still in her cradle on the port side). The Starboard side also appears to have gotten most, if not all of their boats into the water as well, looking at the photo below. Also, photos from the harbor show both even and odd numbered boats. For the most-part, the thousands of passengers and crew were evacuated from the vessel.

There were unfortunately some deaths. From what I gather, some passengers jumped overboard and some of them died as a result. It is unclear home many decided to self-evacuate. If the number of those who jumped into the sea turns out to have been in the hundreds, than I might have to re-evaluation my opinion regarding what I consider a successful evacuation. Now it might be that passengers ended up in the water due to the chaos of the moment and demands that woman and children go first. As far as that issue goes, I wonder who started that policy. I doubt is helped the situation at all. The goal should have been to fill the boats as quickly as possible to get them launched. The progress in clearing the deck would have helped calm the situation. Alternatively, pushing the men back would have just the opposite effect. Anyway, the whole point behind evacuating the women and children first off the TITANIC was the simple sad fact that there were not enough spaces in the lifeboats for all the passengers. This was not the case here. Anyway, looking at the photo above, I see lots of people eager to get off the vessel. I do not see anyone that I can clearly identify as crew. (I’m not saying this is a problem. I’m not sure I would want to be in that crowd. I would rather be either getting passengers into boats or trying to keep the ship afloat.) Given the number of passengers, how could that not feel chaotic? Still, they managed to find the boat deck, managed to remember their life jacket from their staterooms and aren’t all there with their carry-on luggage. Also note that there is lighting on the boat deck. The rest of the ship might be dark, but there is light here.

It is interesting that there are reports that the Captain somehow managed to abandon ship hours before the last passenger. According to this timeline at the National Post, the Captain was found ashore merely 25 minutes after the first lifeboat made it ashore. That makes me wonder if he was onboard that first lifeboat.

Just how did he manage to abandon ship so quickly? If true, regardless of his involvement in contributing to the initial grounding, his absence would be a contributing factor to the confusion afterwards, and perhaps even to the loss of the vessel. Which brings me to the question:

How did the vessel end up resting on its side on the bottom?
If the vessel was holed in only one compartment, I would think that it would have been possible to keep the vessel upright and afloat. This however would have required dedicated efforts from the engineering staff and damage control crew. Just how long do you think they would keep up their efforts once the rumor spreads that the Captain already abandoned ship and was ‘safe’ ashore?

The vessel remained afloat with a list for hours after the incident. So how did it end up on its side? The lowering of the lifeboats would have helped increase the stability of the vessel. Did the initial list permit water to enter the hull from somewhere else into an otherwise secure compartment? If so, wouldn’t the pumps have been able to handle this? To be clear, I think that there was nothing that could have been done regarding the holed compartment, other than to secure it to prevent flooding of other compartments. Or was the damage so great that it spanned more than one watertight compartment? (Can someone with access to the RENA website check hull compartmentalization as well as whether this was a 1 or 2 compartment vessel)

One possibility was that the vessel went aground again near shore, putting this vessel on its side. I would have thought that if it was clear that flooding was going to sink the vessel that they would have purposefully put it aground again to save the ship and keep it upright. The crew might have thought that would have been the result in the location that they were at. The outcome might have been different had the Captain remained on his ship. Even without propulsion, he might have been able to call in tugs to better position the vessel to prevent her from going over onto her side. It could be that there was nothing that the Captain could have been able to do. Who knows, maybe the crew was better off without him. Many of us know Captains like that. But Captains like that are generally not placed in charge of better ships. At any rate, this vessel seems to have lacked leadership at the moment she needed it most.

Certainly more answers will be coming over time. My guess is that the actions of the crew will generally be seen as a contributing factor to the number of lives saved. I also suspect that the actions of the Captain and whoever was the bridge watch officer are going to figure highly in the list of causes of this accident. As I write this over Sunday, I can already see the news stories turning against the Captain. I’m thinking it will only get worse.

I’m not one for criminalization of the seafarer. However, criminal acts deserve to be punished. The Captain’s actions are going to be difficult to defend, if it turns out that he wasn’t there…

READ: Full gCaptain Coverage of the Costa Concordia Disaster

Here’s the ship’s track via MarineTraffic.com:

Source: Gemitrafik

Source: Gemitrafik

Click here to view the embedded video.

The following photos have appeared on several sites without attribution and are unverified as of Monday morning. 

The following is aerial footage of the partially submerged cruise ship, and the rescue operations early this morning, courtesy of Russia Today:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The initial report via Sky News:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It seems Costa Cruises website is down most likely due to heavy traffic but the company has made the following statements regarding the incident via their twitter, @costacruises

@costacruises: Costa Cruises confirms the evacuation of about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members on board of the Costa Concordia off Italian coast.

@costacruises: Costa expresses deep appreciation to Coast Guard, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza, Polizia di Stato, Marina Militare and citizens of Giglio

Costa Concordia cruise ship Friday night, prior to sinking. Photo: (by Sestini – Corriere della Sera) via United States Embassy in Rome

UPDATE: The captain of the cruise ship COSTA CONCORDIA has been arrested by Italian police as an investigation into Friday night’s grounding is launched.  Read: Updated: Cruise Ship Costa Concordia Sinks off Italian Coast [VIDEO, AIS Track]

Earlier: Word is out that the cruiseship COSTA CONCORDIA went aground Friday night. But aground doesn’t accurately describe the current situation, which I would describe as a sinking.

Holidaymakers from Britain, France, Italy and Germany were forced to flee the 1,500-cabin Costa Concordia in lifeboats when it hit a reef less than two hours after leaving port.

Some leapt overboard and swam to shore as the ship started to sink into the waters near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast.

Francesco Paolillo, the coastguard spokesman, said that at least three bodies were retrieved from the sea and at least three more were feared dead.

Local officials are also reporting that 69 people are still unaccounted for.

By this morning, the ship was lying virtually flat off Giglio’s coast, its starboard side submerged in the water. – Telegraph, UK (Click to read the whole article)

Here are two photos from USA Today of the accident:

According to a New York Times report:

“We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side,” said Mike van Dijk, a 54-year-old from Pretoria, South Africa. “We were standing in the corridors and they weren’t allowing us to get onto the boats. It was a scramble, an absolute scramble.”

The vessel “hit an obstacle” — it was not clear if it might have hit a rocky reef in the waters off Giglio — “ripping a gash 50 meters across” in the side of the ship, and started taking on water.

The cruise liner’s captain, Commander Paolillo said, then tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio’s small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier.

But after the ship started listing badly, lifeboat evacuation was no longer feasible, Commander Paolillo said.

Surely there will be more to follow regarding this incident.

22 seafarers lost their lives when the Vinalines Queen sank

By Clay Maitland,

On Christmas day, the bulk carrier VINALINES QUEEN, carrying a cargo of nickel ore from Morowali, Indonesia to China, went missing.  The ship and its crew of 22 must now be considered lost.  Although it is certainly too soon to ascribe a known cause of sinking, it is probably fair to say, as an American judge did many years ago: “Sometimes circumstantial evidence can be very convincing, just as when you find a trout floating in the milk”.

There continues to be a crying need for greater information, understanding and enforcement of regulations – as well as testing – of cargoes that may liquefy.  Nickel ore is one such.  Intercargo, the International Association of Dry Cargo Shipowners, has commendably been a leader in fighting for international action to protect the lives of seafarers, at risk when bulk cargo vessels, like the Supramax VINALINES QUEEN, suddenly disappear.

Over the years, many such losses involved vessels carrying direct reduced iron (DRI), a cargo prone to heating when wet, sometimes resulting in a disastrous explosion.  It took many years for international authorities to recognize the culpability of unscrupulous shippers and consignees – one of our industry’s little secrets.

It will be recalled that in December of 2010, three bulk carriers and their crews were lost, all as a result of cargo liquefaction.  The danger hasn’t gone away.

There is a need for stronger and clearer requirements particularly with respect to accurate information on the carriage of bulk cargoes.  The IMO has held meetings, most recently last September, of its Sub-Committee on Dangerous Goods, Solid Cargoes and Containers (DSC), with many participants, including Intercargo, The International Group of P&I Clubs, The International Union of Marine Insurers, as well as other industry associations, to take further action strengthening the requirements of the existing IMSBC Code.  A prepared schedule for nickel ore will be further reviewed this coming March, before – hopefully – its inclusion in the IMSBC Code at the forthcoming Dangerous Goods Sub-Committee in September.

The safety terminology of hazardous cargoes uses the term “Competent Authority”.  Usually, such an Authority is either a shipper at the port of loading, or receiver at the point of destination.  Rob Lomas, the Secretary General of Intercargo has called for  “…the reassurances of the Competent Authorities in…exporting countries that their procedures and processes have integrity and transparency so that this message is received and most importantly, trusted by the shipowners.  Competent Authorities are key to ensuring that seafarers’ lives are not put in danger”.

It is also clear that bulker losses like that of the VINALINES QUEEN are taking place within specific trades, and with similar destinations in the Far East.  It would be very helpful if the International Maritime Organization (IMO) could study these specific trades, with the objective of getting the word out on hazardous bulk cargoes.  Many of the ships that have been lost have crews and flag states that are not likely to have gotten the necessary information on the risks involved, and the measures that need to be taken, in handling dangerous or difficult cargoes.  The VINALINES QUEEN was built in 2005, and from all available information was in satisfactory condition.  Its loss is another tragedy that didn’t need to happen.

To reach the author, go to www.claymaitland.com or Twitter @claymaitland

-oOo-

Pictured: M/V Swanland via Ship Spotting

Five crewmembers from the cargo ship M/V Swanland are missing after the vessel sank in heavy seas in the Irish Sea early Sunday morning.  A mayday call was received at 2am Sunday morning from the vessels captain shorlty before sinking.

Two crew members were rescued from the water by a RAF helicopter co-piloted coincidentally by Prince William. So far one body has been recovered and five remain missing.  Rescue efforts have been suspended overnight.

The ‘Swanland’, with a crew of 8 mostly made up of Russians, reportedly sank very quickly after being hit by a large wave that caused catastrophic failure to the hull approximately 80kms southeast of Dublin, off Wales’ Bardsey Island.  The 1,978 gross tonnes Swanland was carrying limestone from Raynes Jetty near Colwyn Bay to Cowes on the Isle of Wight when it sank.  The vessel is flagged in the Cook Islands.

Conditions in the area were described as extremely bad, with poor visibility and strong winds.  At least five crewmembers were reported to be wearing survival when the wave hit.

The video below released by the Royal Air Force shows the rescue of the two survivors who were found in a liferaft.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo: USCG

We’ve already seen some close calls today, but hey, they were still close calls.

This weeks actual incident photo comes to us via the USCG and shows a sinking barge being upended 20 miles off Miami Beach, Florida on Nov. 9, 2011. The 270-foot barge began taking on water shortly after the 94-foot tug that was towing it became disabled and adrift.

Details of what actually went down in this incident are bit fuzzy being that most every report is in Chinese, but from what we gather, a highly anticipated luxury leisure boat being built by the city of Lanzou located in the Gansu Province of China nearly sank immediately after the vessel was launched on September 29th.  The vessel, the SS Jiugang, reportedly cost over 17 million RMB (over $2.5m USD) and its launch failure was salt in the wounds for the already expensive and highly questioned project.

Thankfully, the vessel was not a total loss. The SS Jiugang was salvaged and is currently undergoing repairs for a second launching to be held soon.

Check out the video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The world’s most storied deepwater oil rig, the Transocean Marianas, has developed a critical list after an anchor punctured her poontoon and is in risk of sinking on location (UPDATE: She is now stable but risk of sinking remains).  108 people have been evacuated from the rig and 13 remain aboard to perform damage control duties. The Marianas, a Transocean-owned semi-submersible drilling rig is on contract with ENI S.p.A in Ghana, West Africa.

The rig began to take on water and list during anchor recovery operations and it’s believed there is damage to the rig’s #5/#6 anchor chain lockers, however the rig’s crew has since been able to stabilize the situation and a Transocean employee has approximated the list to be less than one degree – a fact that suggests she is stable and no water has entered the column closest to the damage. The rig’s ballast pumps are keeping up with the inflow of water and there was no report of any environmental impact.

But despite being stable, the rig is not yet in the clear. Due to the increase in water pressure at depth, punctures in the pontoons of semi-submersible oil rigs, like the Marianas, are always considered critical. The increased pressure at depth translates to a higher rate of water ingress than would be measured on a traditional ship with equivalent damage. The higher pressure at depth also means increased pressure at the point of damage thus increasing the likelihood of the damage spreading into adjacent compartments. It has not reported if it was at the rig’s higher transit draft in preparation for move – the ususal next step after anchor recovery – which would help minimize the pressure exerted on the damaged pontoon.

Transocean spokesman Guy Cantwell told Reuters ”The rig is stable at this time. There are no injuries,” and has officially downplayed the risk of sinking but sources closer to the damage tell us the company has placed top priority on the incident and has not ruled out sinking as a possibility if weather deteriorates, the damage spreads or a mechanical failure is experienced.

gCaptain has also received word that Transocean has made the proper notifications with regulatory authorities, investors and the media. In addition gCaptain has been told the company has placed stationed tugs in the area, has developed a plan to evacuate the 13 remaining personnel if damage worsens and a team of divers from a nearby rig is en-route to assess the damage.

gCaptain contributer and weather expert Fred Pickhardt of Ocean Weather Services, reports with the following forecast for the region:

Currently satellite images show widespread tropical shower activity across West Africa but mostly concentrated overland, however, some shower activity extends southward over the coastal waters. Surface winds over the area are southerly to southwesterly mostly forces 2-4 with a mostly southerly swell of 5-7 ft at 8-10 seconds.

Oddly enough, the Marianas was the same rig that initially “spudded” the ill-fated Macondo well that led to last year’s tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. This rig was initially named “Tharos” and designed as a floating “fire truck” of sorts for the North Sea, however it was later converted to a drilling rig and renamed after it’s design proved highly ineffective during the Piper Alpha disaster that occurred 23 years ago on this date.