MSC Napoli Sinking

[Input_2007]

Might as well remove this too :-(

[TREBOATS]

rjford - Dont know whats happened but did send you a reply with points I was trying to make and but seems to have got lost?

Anyway things have moved on and we are now faced with the ship being on the beach for a year they suggest. Seems the structural damage was greater than anticipated!

Principle question WHY


WHY does a ship of this age fail this question seems to have been lost.

[Input_2007]

Might as well remove this too :-(

[Ship's Cat]

The posts along the lines of 'Mediterranean Sinking Company' etc, were irrelevant to the subject and also inappropriate, so they were removed. I don't want to cause offence to you, but all sorts of people read these forums and we have to be careful what we put.

[Ian G Hardie]

Hi
 Follow the link to MSC press releases MSC NAPOLI latest news

[Royston Ford]

Why would you say it is likely to be cut up on the beaching area??

I'm not sure that she will be cut up where she lays but it is a very distinct possiblity.

Her back is not broken yet

I think you will find that her back is broken. The images from 18 January showed longitudinal cracks rising up the hull at the same points port and starboard. The steel at the head of the cracks was clearly in compression and the hull was visibly sagging over the damaged area (you can see the sagging on the gunwales). All clear indications of there being nothing holding the ship together at that point on the keel. As I said before, I think there was a valiant effort to drag her to a port with following seas and weather (the most stable condition for a hull in that state) but it proved ultimately impossible.

Vessels in far worse shape than this one have been taken into port in one piece... many hundreds of times

Errm, I don't believe that's correct.

The Hyundai Fortune comes to mind.Quite a few posts here had her sunk, blown to bits, hopeless etc. Well the vessel is saved and in port for sale thanks to Wijsmullers experts

I worked on Hyundai Fortune in Salalah, Oman last March/April. Wijsmuller did an amazing job on the fire-fighting and salvage operation. But the ship suffered fires and explosions that damaged the hull but not the keel, there is a very important distinction. The structures that give the ship its strength were not damaged (although possibly weakened by heat) on "HF" so the ship remained of value to anyone prepared to spend the money necessary to repair the hull and replace the power and drive train.

If it were possible to refloat the vessel (or the sections of it) then the consideration has to be how much would that cost and would you be able to tow it/them to a place where they could be scrapped safely and economically. Trust me, this vessel will not be repaired - if it were technically possible, which I doubt, no insurer on earth would touch it with a bargepole.

There is nowhere in the vicinity that could handle the scrapping process so all in all it may well be cheaper to cut her in situ and take her away section by section on barges.

[Royston Ford]

WHY does a ship of this age fail this question seems to have been lost.

That really is the 6,000 dollar question. We can't conclude anything until the investigations are complete but I can't help comparing this incident to "MSC Carla". That ship was lengthened - taken into dry dock, cut in two and new cells inserted before she was stitched up again. Lo and behold she broke in two at one of the joints.

"MSC Napoli", under another name, went through a full speed grounding, languished on a reef for 60 days and was then put back together with about 3,000mt of steel replacement (that's a big repair by the way). See a pattern developing?

I've worked alongside class surveyors who have on occasion looked at repairs (permanent or temporary) which seem counter-intuitive in their nature yet all the engineering calculations, inspections and tests reveal nothing on paper which would give grounds for objection so the are *forced* to sign off on them.

I'm not saying that this incident is directy linked to the repairs from the last grounding, just that the possibility is well worthy of consideration.

[FWE]

The similarities in history and fate of the MSC Napoli and the earlier MSC Carla are striking. In addition to structural issues attempt to maintain service speed in heavy weather conditions was alleged but denied in the case of the MSC Carla. If the MSC Napoli was already behind schedule after delays in Europe due to weather conditions and facing further weather delays there is an inherent(ie not neccessarily explicit) pressure on masters to maximise speed to maintain schedules and berth bookings etc. Is there any indication of the speed of the ship prior to the incident as associated stress may also be a factor, so this can be discounted ?.

The prior week in the discharge and loading cycle in Europe had also seen extreme weather conditions causing delays with ports closed due to weather and negative tidal surges causing extremely low tides. In addition to the effect of these delays there is a possibility (though remote) that the ship had then grounded on a berth and incurred hull stress.

[Input_2007]

Might as well remove this too :-(

[Input_2007]

Might as well remove this too :-(

[Adrian Buchan]

There are a lot of things about the MSC Napoli disaster that need answering.
The ship was abandoned 50 miles South of the Lizard in a severe SW. gale, why was it not towed to Falmouth were they have the facilities to handle a ship of this size? it would have had the wind on its port quarter.
Having towed it to France with the wind on its starboard bow why was it not docked there as originally planed ?  who made the decision to tow it from France to Portland harbour ?

An Friday afternoon the ship was 45 miles NW of Guernsey, heading North for Start Point, by midnight it was 12 miles East of Berry Head, it seemed obvious at the time that the French tug Captain was planning to ride out the approaching gale in the lee of the land to the East of Torbay.
At around midnight with the wind freshening from the SW someone appears to have ordered the convoy to proceed direct to Portland instead of sheltering off of Torbay, I have still to hear an explanation for this.
Sometime during the night the condition of the MSC Napoli deteriorated and by early morning she was in the middle of Lyme Bay on her way to be grounded off of Branscombe beach.

The powers that be seem to be trying to bury this by making a big fuss about all the people making off with BMW motorbikes and car parts. The locals are more concerned about the effect that this will have on the holiday trade and the fishing industry, not to mention the 1000 odd oiled sea birds that we have at the moment.
They say that it will take a week to pump out all the oil, with a bit of luck the weather will hold that long for them to complete the task. But they will be very lucky, if not almost impossible to remove all the cargo before the ship breaks up in the next SW gale. We will then have containers all over the place and the local police just do not have enough resources to police the situation when that happens

[maz_atenza]

Input_2007 wrote:
 Well to be honest its the more lengthier and serious posts I was concerned about the disappearance of not the one's thrown in as albeit warped humour. By the way, I am slightly offended as the original post along the lines you are refering to is still here for people to read and add to, which was not by me.

I appologyze for my previous post that I just removed,
with the time differance I didnt see all the commotion that this post created.

Regards
Maz

[Royston Ford]

There are a lot of things about the MSC Napoli disaster that need answering

why was it not towed to Falmouth were they have the facilities to handle a ship of this size? it would have had the wind on its port quarter

I think the navigational issues and the interaction of the prevailing weather and the sea in the broken-backed hull have been amply addressed in earlier posts. The only condition in which the hull could have survived was with following seas and winds. She probably would have broken up on coming to port to enter Falmouth. That's why, it seems, she was taken in a straight line toward Portland where there is a deep water berth and little other activity for a great dirty wreck to disrupt.

The largest berth at Falmouth is 230m with 8m draught. Not nearly enough for MSC Napoli without considering the depth of water on the approach and the problems manoeuvring a powerless vessel of that size.

Then ask how would the good people of Falmouth feel if the ship broke up in port or on the approaches and shut the entire marine operation there for a very long time indeed. And then ask about the pollution...

[gareth]

I agree Falmouth was not feasible.  Aside from the beam sea, by the time she was taken in tow I think the ship had drifted in the gales considerably further to the East from the location of the original incident.  By then other ports were nearer and more sheltered than Falmouth.

I still maintain Cherbourg would have been the best bet.  Massive deep water entrance, and massive outer harbour to provide shelter from any wind for however long is now necessary for salvage operation.  Depth may have been an issue, but the Western entrance and the navigaiton channel in the outer harbour carry around 11-12 metres plus height of tide - it's possible that wasn't enough in the semi-sunken state.  But on the tide she would probably have got in and could have been beeched in the outer harbour outside and to the north of the navigation channel in 8 or 9 metres.

If depth wasn't the problem I can only assume the French didn't want to run the risk of the ship sinking somewhere that effectively put the port out of action.

[Tim Twichell]

Well accroding to the press release the goal at present is too tow her off in one piece, I am not a salvage expert or even a ship expert, but after years of being interested in marine salvage operations and reading, collecting, books, video, photos and being involved in a few inland and Great Lakes salvage operations, "I work for a firm that clears railroad wrecks and does other industrial emergency and heavy rigging and crane work" I have come to greatly respect the ability of the large salvage firms to pull off near miracles. As far as the vessels back being broken you  have more knowledge than me, I would have assumed that perhaps the keel is weak and partly broken but that enough strength could still be available to be able to tow off the light ship safely. I do agree that the vessel is most likely junk, but I also think if they can get to a yard or scrapping area it wouild be a better political solution to this incident. I guess only time will tell what the outcome will be. Thanks to all on this site for the fantastic photos and information available for ship and marine operation lovers like myself!! it's great stuff. Tim Twichell USA.