Fire on Calypso

[Aad Hoogesteger]

Passenger ship on fire in Channel

A ship with more than 450 passengers on board has issued a May Day signal after a fire broke out in the engine room.
The Calypso vessel got into difficulties in the English Channel, about 15 miles off Beachy Head, coastguard officers confirmed.

Crew members moved the 462 passengers to the deck of the ship, which was sailing from Essex to Guernsey.
A coastguard spokeswoman said four lifeboats and a rescue helicopter have been sent to the scene.

British passengers

She said the May Day call was made about 0400 BST from the ship, which is sailing from Tilbury, Essex, to St Peter Port in Guernsey. There are 246 crew on board.
A French lifeboat and helicopter have also been sent to help deal with the incident.
"The passengers and crew are mustering to the deck of the vessel, but members of the crew are also fighting the fire," the spokeswoman said.

"The vessel is carrying mainly British passengers."
Alan Bishop, a Solent coastguard said there were no current plans to abandon the ship.
"The ship has its lifeboats out but not lowered and we are monitoring the situation, " he added.

[TEDINGHAM]

As Senior Watch Manager at Dover Coastguard I received and acknowledged the Mayday from the cruise ship The Calypso.
Once the initial call was received then our main priority is to activate the Search and Rescue response such as lifeboats,ships within the vicinity and helicopters.
This was the first time that the Maritime Initial Response Group recently formed by the MCA together with the local Fire Fighting Authority was tasked. This involved the transportation of fire fighters and gear by helicopter out to the casualty.
One our our problems in the past is to obtain a decent photograph of the vessel to e-mail down to helicopter crew and the Fire Brigade in order that they can plan the airbourne winching.
As time was of the essence I went straight to SHIPSPOTTING.COM and Ken Smith's picture of The Calypso taken the day before at Tilbury was used by all the Authorites involved. To Ken I must say a big thankyou and I apologise now for not getting your permission but as I have already said time was of the essence.I have tried your e-mail but there seems to be a problem my end.
To Shipspotting.Com thanks for producing such a superb database.It can in the future save lives.
Regards Ted Ingham

[John Jones]

Excellent work both Ken & Ted. Lucky the incident didn't happen much later in the weekend though or Ted would have had less luck in finding the picture on here   :roll:  :roll:
regards
John J.