Car Carrier in Trouble in the Bering Sea

[Phil English]

NORTH PACIFIC 24 July - Twenty-three seafarers remain aboard the Singapore-flagged car carrier Cougar Ace as it continues to take on water and list heavily in the Bering Sea off the Aleutians. The US Coast Guard has told Fairplay that a C-130 aircraft arrived on scene at 1405 GMT and is overflying the distressed Mitsui OSK vessel while a distant USCG cutter and the bulker Ikan Juara rush to the area to assist. At present, only one crewmember has sustained injuries

[Michael Martin]

Here is a website with a news story about the Cougar Ace written in July 2005 Mitsui-OSK Lines in house magazine Open Sea. I just wanted to give readers a feel for the size of her cargo...a capacity for 5214 vehicles! It's not hard to conceptuilize how a vessel like this can list very quickly if seawater starts flooding into the huge open car decks without the benefit of bulkhead subdivisions.

[rd77]

according to the news article the vessel has a list of 80 degrees. If that is true she has basically already capsized. I'd hate to be aboard that vessel right now.


brgds.

[barry]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Rescuers from the Coast Guard and Alaska Air National Guard late Monday saved 23 crew members from an Asian cargo ship taking on water south of the Aleutian Islands.

``People are out of harm's way, they are rescued and they are safe,'' said Alaska National Guard spokesman Maj. Mike Haller.

All 23 crew members were hoisted into two National Guard Pave Hawk helicopters and a Coast Guard helicopter and taken to Adak Island in the Aleutians, 230 miles to the north of the Cougar Ace.

[JoK]

I can't wait to see how they are going to get that ship upright.
Obviously they have some ballast issues that have affected the ships stability adversely.I would think if they decided to reballast to bring it upright then the ship will flop the opposite way and capsize for sure. Is it in an angle of loll I wonder...
It is amazing that it has stayed in this postion for so long.
I'm sure the naval architects and salvagers are wearing out more then a few pencils trying to get a salvage plan together. You wouldn't be able to tow the ship this way, I would think.
Very tricky indeed.

[Charles McAllister]

Sadly, Cougar Ace has claimed her first victim.  A member of the salvage assessment team which boarded the vessel has died after falling.

I can appreciate that just moving around the vessel in the circumstances of the extreme list must be tremendously dangerous.  Let's hope there are no more casualties.

Another report mentioned that the captain stated in interviews ashore that the ship went over on her side in less than 10 minutes while the crew was attemting to transfer ballast.  Sounds like either an equipment failure or someone screwed up big time.  I have always felt that those big box car carriers looked like they would be very unstable when loaded, but so many have been in service on long voyages for so many years without incident that it would seem the design is proven.

Probably this will be revealed, like many disasters, to have been the result of a chain of problems.  One question in my mind is why the crew would be adjusting trim so far into a voyage?  Isn't fuel drawn from multiple tanks precisely to prevent any loss of stability?  There are many here who have much more experience with large ships than I who may know the answer.

[rgr004]

Charles,

The reason for working on the ballast system is a requirement for avoiding transfering unwanted species contained in the ballast water from one place to another in the world. Vessel are required to comply with such offshore.

rgds / roland

[Charles McAllister]

Thanks, Roland, I had forgotten about that requirement.  Bad on my part, since fast growing mussels believed brought in from Asia in ballast water have been blamed for many problems in the waters of Tampa Bay, just to the north of my home.