The only specialised marine publication in Oceania that focuses on the maritime industry, from super yachts to small craft to large commercial ships, including coastal shipping, tugs, tow boats, barges, ferries, tourist, sport-fishing craft
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BEYOND THE HORIZON HOW DRUNK? (AND IN CHARGE)!!! W BY HUGH WARE hen the Dutch-registered coaster Flinterspirit became stuck on Flodday Mor Island, Scotland, on its way from Sweden to Belfast, the Russian master was found asleep in his bed with no one on the bridge at the time. He was fined £3,000 for failing to alter his course and prevent grounding the vessel, and £300 for failing a routine breath test – three days after the grounding! The combined chemical and oil tanker Terry ran aground off Drogden In Danish waters. The master tested quite drunk. THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE Royal Dutch Shell announced that it is losing $1bn a year due to drilling delays since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Although imports of containers into the US rose by 7.3 percent in March mostly in furniture and car parts, experts predicted that the second half of this year will have a very modest increase in imports. THIN PLACES AND HARD KNOCKS The New Zealand tug Tuahine used its EPIRB to request help when its steering broke down off Australia's Cape Moreton. The rubber tyres used as fenders had been stored in the lazarette and during rough weather one had chafed through a hydraulic hose, disabling the steering. An explosion wracked the chemical tanker Royal Diamond 7 near Mumbai, injuring seven, one of whom later died from his burns. An explosion in the engine of a tugboat in the Suez Canal killed three and injured a dozen others. While crossing Elefsis Bay near Piraeus, Greece, the product tanker Alfa 1 sank after hitting a submerged object (probably the marked wreck of the City of Myconos). That was in March and since then the sunken tanker has been leaking oil through manholes, vent pipes and sounding pipes. Now, the remaining oil is being removed by hot-tapping the tanks. The sixty-foot tug Aquarius sank on the final leg of a voyage from Gibraltar to Plymouth. In the Gulf of Mexico in the Aransas Pass Channel near Corpus Christi, the in-bound crude-oil tanker FR8 Pride lost power and drifted into the outbound jack-up drill rig Rowan EXL-1. The tanker's for'ard ballast tanks were holed and it was towed to shallow water, where it was grounded to prevent further flooding. Long-distance sailboat races on the US West Coast twice turned deadly. The 38 foot Low Speed Chase ran into the Farallones (aka Farallon) Islands after being hit by a big wave. Five of the crew of eight were washed overboard and two more took involuntary swims after the allision with the rocks. Five men went missing, two were helicoptered off the island, and a man with a broken leg was plucked from the yacht. Then, the 37 foot Aegean ran into one of the Ensenada Islands during the Newport to Ensenada Race and four were killed. Early reports of extensive fragmentation of the fibreglass yacht and head trauma on recovered bodies led searchers to initially believe that the yacht had collided with a large vessel but a detailed GPS track of the yacht showed the last pip coinciding with the shore of North Coronado Island. Satellite reporting of each contestant's GPS data is now required during many long-distance races. At the Ras Laffan oil and gas field off Qatar, twelve workers 34 Professional Skipper July/August 2012 on the tug Al Deebel were conducting maintenance on a single point mooring, a large buoy that enables connection of a sea- bottom pipeline to a ship, when there was an explosion. Seven workers died including the tug's elderly English master. While docked at Hobart, the research vessel Aurora Australis had a fire in the ship's laundry. Reportedly, an overheated tea towel in the dryer was blamed for the fire. MARINERS DIED Three bird-watchers on the cruise ship Star Princess off the Galapagos Islands saw waving figures on a small fishing vessel and frantically tried to tell someone. But word never reached the bridge and the ship sailed on. By the time a commercial FV rescued the FV two weeks later, two of the three Panamanian fishermen had died. The cruise company admitted to an apparent "breakdown in communication in relaying the passenger's concern". SHIPS RAN AGROUND In New Zealand, the mate had been drinking the night before so he wasn't exactly on the top rung when he stood bridge watch the next day. He failed to notice that the coaster Anatoki had run aground off Golden Bay. But he did ring down to the engineer to comment that the engine "sounded different". The incident was attributed to the absence of a bridge alarm system and the mate's lack of adequate sleep. Water levels on the Casamance River in Senegal have been low and both the small cargo ship Cap Saint George and the larger Dakar-Ziguinchor ro-ro/passenger ferry Aline Sitoe Diatta, whose master should have known the local conditions, ran aground. RESCUES The 68 foot Geraldton Western Australia, one of ten yachts competing in the biennial Clipper Round The World Yacht Race, was overwhelmed about 400 miles off California when a big wave hit the boat, snapping off the steering-wheel pedestal and injuring four of a crew of eighteen. The USCGC Bertholf took the two most seriously injured crew off. Two badly burned fishermen were taken off the Chinese fishing vessel Fu Yuan Yu 871 some 700 miles off Acapulco after the US Coast Guard had requested the California National Air Guard to drop four paramedics and a Zodiac nearby. Two special-ops helicopters that had been refuelled in flight by a special-ops MC-130P tanker aircraft, then flew them to Acapulco where another MC-130P flew them on to a San Diego burn treatment centre. Luckily for the fishermen southern California is host to an Air Force air-rescue wing. US forces have been bragging about recent rescues of Iranian vessels in various forms of distress so it was nice when, despite international tensions and sanctions, Iran welcomed an airliner after it declared a medical emergency while en route from Dubai to Seattle. On board was a 52 year old American man with heart problems. Medical facilities at Tehran stabilized him enough so that he continued his flight a few days later. GREY FLEETS The highest powers in the UK have changed their minds once