Ships battle 17m waves with tanker beached

[Heath]

THERE are fears three ships may become beached due to "wild" conditions north of where a cargo ship ran aground off the New South Wales coast this morning.


http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5517625,00.jpg

NSW Ports Minister Joe Tripodi said the Sea Confidence was in distress about 0.8 nautical miles off Stockton Beach, near Newcastle.

"It's got its engines at full speed trying to get away from the coastline but it's being dragged towards the coastline and will run aground, we expect soon," he said.

He did not know how many crew were on the Sea Confidence, but a NSW Maritime spokesman said tugboats had been deployed to try to pull the ship further out to sea.

The spokesman said the ship had held its position and it was hoped that once a tow-line with a tugboat was connected, it could make its way further out to sea.

But he said conditions needed to die down before the line was secured.

An Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman said the 190m-long vessel had been moored off the shoreline, but heavy seas had forced it further in shore this morning.

It was not known if the ship, which has a capacity of more than 39,000 tonnes, was carrying any cargo.

There were concerns for at least another two ships off the coast, with waves of up to 17m, Mr Tripodi said.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman said officials were concerned about another ship, the Coral Emerald, being forced toward shore.

“The Coral Emerald is about three nautical miles from the shore,” the spokeswoman said.

She said ships along the coastline were trying to sail further east to avoid beachings.

The NSW Maritime spokeswoman said a third ship, Betis, was also seeking emergency assistance from authorities after being forced within 2.5 kilometres from the shoreline.

Coal carrier the Pasha Bulker ran aground earlier today, with all 21 crew being airlifter to safety this afternoon.

With AAP

[Marlin_Mike]

hhhmmmmmmmmmm looks like an afternoon Moreton Bay chop.................wouldnt wanna be on that ship.......thems big waves

Mike

[Tangles]

Apparently up to 17m waves, now at 9 metres but in eye of the storm, they expect it to get worse

cheers
Mike

[charleville]

What a dreadful shame. The ship was built only last year ...


http://myskitch.com/charleville/fleet_list-20070608-174638.png

[Mercury16]

woah big loss,
how much do you reckon she was worth?$?

[triman]

At a rough estimate you'd be looking at a bill in the region of $US40M to 50M to build one of them, depending upon the options; a bit like a car really.

[Far side]

I monitor the weather every day
This low was forcast 4 days ago and predicted correctly with locations etc
Why didn't these ships seek safe harbour
Now we have this enviromental nightmare beached on one of NSW beaches
Not to mention the risks taken by rescue helecopters to get the crews off
Someone needs arse kicking for this

[warrior1]

the area will be buggered if it breaks apart and drops it,s oil and fuel.

[Mercury16]

They have only just given the order for all the ships to seek refuge further out to sea.
that tanker would nearly have a full tank of fuel.
if it leaks, that fuel could even make its way into lake macquarie. killing all the fish i havent caught yet :0

[-spiro-]

looks like longtail....lol

[sambos]

At a rough estimate you'd be looking at a bill in the region of $US40M to 50M to build one of them, depending upon the options; a bit like a car really.

i,m only guessing to mate , but given that aussie rules was i think 77mill for 30mtrs i think this vessel would be in the hundreds of millions.i do howevever realise that these boats dont have large game boats and all the other mods and cons built in ,i still think they would be much dearer.
cheers

rick

[subzero]

Big ships normally head OUT to sea and deep water when large storms are comming as I understand it, but I do stand to be corrected.
I dont know much about a large vessel and it's handling characteristics in rough weather but I would assume because of their draught, in sheltered areas they would run a very great risk of running aground as has happened today.
Mother Nature would deliver incredible forces on a ship that size if abeam of the prevailing winds and seas.

Cheers Lloyd

[cabfisher]

Hi All well as I remember along time ago back in the seventys I think it was a storm like this in the same area A bulk carrier called " Sygna "I think it was,went ashore near there and was wrecked it broke in two .
The front half was saved. They had the rear end afloat ,but due to a union dispute over wages,the rear end of the ship with the engine & other machinery ect. was lost and is still there .
The Newcastle Harbour is not very big as it is the mouth of a river and no room for large ship to moor, hence the reason that they have to wait outside in a qeue and the skippers dont want to move out to sea and lose there place in the qeue to come in to load.
So it looks like History may repeat itself
Cheers Harry

[nigelr]

That storm in May '74 produced the largest high tide on record.
Destroyed the old Manly Pool and boardwalk to Marineland completely.
Left a cliff at least 12 feet high on the open beaches along the entire NSW coast.
At New Brighton we saw holiday shacks built in the dunes that had been totally demolished!
As for the present incident, the salvage process would certainly provide an exciting spectacle for the locals. Those tug operators are very brave men with very strong stomachs, IMHO!
Apparently the ship has moved further aground during the night, the forecast is for 50 KNOT winds today.
For the sake of the locals, hope the fuel leakage is only minor.
Cheers.

[seatime]

why does the media label every ship as a "tanker" is it ignorance or sensationalist journalism?

they're fortunate there's only 700t of FO onboard, if reports are accurate, a ship that size could have 2,500t of bunkers.

triman's figures of US$40-50m sounds right for a bulk carrier, after all it's only really a big shoe box. There wouldn't be any luxurious accommodation or trimmings for the crew, it's all about the cargo on those jobs. http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/images/icons/icon9.gif

[gone_fishing]

went in town yesterday arvo for a quizz
thats one big stuff up there was 4 other boats calling a distress signal at about 2pm they were getting blown in from 5 nm out no thats a power packed storm
one was 600m of stockton beach you could see it working hard to keep off the beach
there hoping that with the big tides they might get it off the beach
hope so but if it were a k or so north theyd let it rot like the sygna

a congrat goes out to newcastle rescue services both staffed and volenters on a hard day and night looking after our community

[ellicat]

Newcastle gets more than its fair share of disasters. Poor Novacastrians. First Andrew Johns retires and now this!!!
Hope there's no spillage of that cargo.

[Fish Guts]

anyone got a good vhf set whose near newscastle. give us an update on the ships in distress.

[gone_fishing]

all boats out of danger
anchored and secure 5+nm out to sea
weather has calmed down no wind cant sea any white caps off the coast seas fairly level
except for the trees and debree all over the roads you woulndnt have known how bad the storm was
threr pridicting bad weather to come back in afternoon

[Fish Guts]

thanks for the update.

cheers

fish guts

[hondaguy]

Dont know anything about ships but if they filled up the ballast tanks could they not ride out such storms out at sea? Or in shallow water fill up with ballast and become stuck fast deliberately and when past on a rising tide dump the excess ballast water and under own steam or tug boat return to deeper water? Or would the ship break up if stuck on the sand in these rough conditions?

[seatime]

They're built to float and be supported evenly along their full length. This ship is strengthened for two holds to be left empty, and the others loaded with cargo. A couple of the holds could possibly be filled with water, used to be common practice with some bulk carriers to fill a hold to use as ballast.
The hull would still need to be supported, bouncing on the bottom would cause nasty stresses. An ice breaker which is seriously strengthened might stand up to that sort of treatment, might, lots of variables involved.

[GreekBoi]

Check these pics my dad got off a mate of his...

This tanker was caught in a cyclone.


7897

7898

7899

7900

[seabug]

Hi GreekBoi,
Thanks for posting the photos.

Those tankers sure do it tough.

What a massive amount of water over the ship in the last photo

Regards
seabug

[seatime]

Those pics are of the M.V. Selkirk Settler in the Nth Atlantic, 1987. She was on a voyage from Florida to Belgium with a cargo of phosphates.
Coincidently, Selkirk Settler is very similar in size to the Pasha Bulker, and carries similar bulk cargoes.

http://news.webshots.com/album/557061736KjhYSs
http://pics.boatnerd.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album2419

[tully]

Just an update on the grounded bulker. The plot thickens.
Apparently the Newcastle port authourity have no power to order any vessel to pick up anchor and head out to sea. All they can do is advise all ships to do so, which seems ludicrous to me considering the potential for disaster.
There is always a very long queu of ships waiting their turn outside Newcastle port. The protocol is to only pump out their ballast water once they are tied up in port ready to load, but to save time some ships will do this while waiting at anchor outside.
This is more common practice for ships with very slow ballast pumping equipment.
Even though the pasha bulker is only very new, it has very slow ballast pumping equipment, as do a list of other known ships.
If they pump out the ballast while riding at anchor then they become difficult to control in bad weather. For one thing the propellor comes out of the water as the vessel ploughs over waves.
This is the biggest show in town at the moment, and should be interesting to witness the salvage attempt.
My guess is it will end up as a restauraunt right where it is.

[barkers creek]

just a few pics

cheers guys

[FNQCairns]

Anyone seen the ship 'wreckers' in India I think, the shipping companys of the world beach their unwanted hulks whereby hundreds of 'workers' set about walking the km or more on boards over the sandy mud or mud and slowly chop and carry the pieces back.

Suspect that unless melted down and made into another ship it has seen the last of it's days afloat in one piece.

Tully thanks for the added info, how slow is a slow ballast system?

cheers fnq

[Mercury16]

Yeah i heard about them on i think 60 minutes or one of them A current afairs show. they showed you the skipper beaching the old tanker. dont they get paid only $1 an hour??

[charleville]

Suspect that unless melted down and made into another ship it has seen the last of it's days afloat in one piece.


Not so sure. There was a ship ran aground in Mexico last year and the month by month saga to refloat her would make you believe that she was there for good well and truly but surprisingly enough they dragged her off eventually. She was fully loaded.

http://www.cargolaw.com/2006nightmare_apl_panama.html

http://myskitch.com/charleville/2006_nightmare_-m_v_apl_panama-20070618-001630.jpg

http://myskitch.com/charleville/2006_nightmare_-m_v_apl_panama_page_2-20070618-001240.jpg


http://myskitch.com/charleville/2006_nightmare_-m_v_apl_panama_page_2-20070618-001100.jpg

[seatime]

Nobbies Beach, Newcastle, Xmas 2007 :(

[Black_Rat]

It's moved a fair bit in the last half hour :o

The light on the bow was under the 'C' & 'O' in Coastwatch, now under the 'L'

http://www.coastalwatch.com/camera/NobbysBeach.htm

[FNQCairns]

Hope they get it of on the king tide, saw on TV they have the nose further out ATM, although I suspect they have lost the angular mechanical advantage and a dead tow will be next, gotta be a harder case dragging the prop and rudder through the sand as well.

Would like to be there to see it but with the exclusion zone to avoid critical eyes TV would be just as good.

cheers fnq

[Noelm]

what about if they got a couple of 'big arse" pump type dredges and just pumped all the sand away from the sea side to make a tempory channel to tow it into?? they would need to be going all the time the thing was being pulled , but who knows, they may be able to "suck" enough sand from around it to make it easier to float!

[Chris Ryan]

Bloody good idea Noelm. Also a backhow or high ressure water blaster at the sand around the rudder/prop at low tide to give a channel for water to assist in floating the stern off the sand/reef it is stuck on.

[betsy]

theres no ship its a green peace hoax

[Black_Rat]

It's GOONNNNEEEEEEEEEE ! ;D Just watch them pull it out to sea ;D

[Brumby]

I'm pleased to have been proven wrong - looking at some of those photos where she looked to be almost on the beach, I would have put money on her staying where she was.

[Timbothecat]

Yeah, she's gone, and apparently very little oil/fuel spilled8-). The fishing should really start to crank up again here in the next few weeks. Still a lot debris in the river though, lots of grass and not much biting. Still, can't blame a bloke for trying.

What an absolutely amazing effort by the salvage team as this could have been a massive disaster both in loss of life and environmental damage so... :thumbup::thumbup::thumbsup:

[wombat 100]

It is truly a game for iron ships and iron men These represent life on a bulk carrier in average conditions around the world no place for a 16 foot tinnie or a weak stomach

[tunaticer]

Far be it from me being any form of expert on salvage of ships stranded but looking back at everything they had to overcome to get this ship back into deeper water I think maybe they took the long way to go about it.
Looking at a lot of footage of the vessel and the location of the reefs etc and how the vessel was sitting and its direction I think that maybe another option that possibly would have been a faster solution would be to remove the prop and rudder and skull drag it out backwards between the reefs directly in line with the direction it was pointing.
The prop and the rudder were known to have been extensively damaged in the grounding so I would presume removing them would create less weight aft (possibly quite a substantial amount) and would certainly remove any snagging effect.
Just wondering what your thoughts are about the salvage with hindsight?

Jack.

[ashh]

they should have got another tanker to come in closer and then attached a big ass snatch strap to it and snatched it out :D

[seatime]

tunaticer,

It's a big job removing a prop and rudder in a dry dock where cranes are available, completing the job successfully in a dynamic environment would be nigh on impossible. Damaging seals & bearings could also result in pollution to the sea. Cutting away the prop & rudder wouldn't really be on the agenda.
The engineroom is just forward of the rudder, the heaviest part of the ship and the least likely part to float first. When refloating any sized vessel it's usually easier to work on the lightest part first, the bow in this case. When the bow and midship parts of the hull start to float it will assist the stern to float. Pulling the bow out to sea will also help break the suction between the hull and seabed.
The anchor and mooring winches on the bow can also be put to use, whereas the stern may only have a couple of mooring winches. Strengthened mooring bits/bollards, emergency towing arrangement, and room to work, make the bow the better option for towing.

regards
Steve

[Sea-Dog]

Whatever happened to the Pasha Bulker?

Last I heard, she was being towed to Brisbane for repairs.

Did she end up in Brissy or elsewhere?

[gawby]

I think i hear it went back overseas empty to undergo repairs.

Graeme