I’m a bit surprised there’s been no discussion of this ongoing incident. Tanker Stena Immaculate, a U.S.-flagged tanker (a rarity in itself, as I understand it) carrying jet fuel for the U.S. Navy was at anchor near the mouth of the Humber on the U.K.'s east coast when the container ship Solong came barreling down the coast at 16 knots (16 knots doesn’t sound fast to this landlubber, but I gather from the commentators that 16 knots is really fast for this kind of ship) in a straight line and t-boned Stena Immaculate .
And for the pedants here, we have the debate over collision (two moving ships) vs. allision (ship striking a stationary object). As the YouTuber says, an anchored ship isn’t quite stationary. But it seems to me that it sorta is relative to a ship barreling along at 16 knots.
In some ways it’s not all that fast, and they can go faster, but you also have to consider that at that speed, if the ship decides that it needs to stop, it’s going to be a good 20 minutes or so before it actually does come to a stop. Unless of course it rams into something that stops it.
On the plus side (if there is such a thing as a plus side in this type of situation), at least the tanker is a relatively modern design being made up of many smaller tanks inside the vessel, so that only one (or maybe two) of those tanks got ruptured. You still get jet fuel in the water, but at least you don’t get an entire tanker’s worth of jet fuel out in the water. Plus, the ship’s not likely to sink.
According to the news article, the cargo ship is probably going to sink though.
One missing sailor from the cargo ship is presumed dead.
I’m with you on this one. It may be not quite stationary, but close enough. It’s not moving under its own power and its not maneuvering.
Seems pretty fast to me, about 18.4 MPH. I was out on my escooter last night and, it being so low, I really noticed how fast its 15 MPH max clips along. And how I really ought to get a helmet. It’s definitely faster than I can run.
16 knots is not a crazy speed for a freighter operating well away from shore. They typically go slower for fuel economy, but sometimes making up time is more valuable to the owner than is saving fuel. For awhile 10-15 years ago there was a real competition to build ever faster container ships to do more round trips per year to/from China. Some even cruised above 20 knots. Then the price of fuel went up and the value of JIT cargo went down and suddenly “slow steaming” was the style.
Whether 16 knots was too much for the area where the collision occurred is beyond my expertise. We’ll all know eventually.
And now someone has been arrested for Gross Negligence Manslaughter in connection with the collision. Either the captain or watch-keeper (who wasn’t watching) I imagine.
The ColRegs ( Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea to give them their full title) are very clear on this. There is an obligation to keep an effective watch using all available means (so, including radar and AIS) - rule 5 if anyone is interested. This clearly wasn’t done and it’s a slam-dunk. Speed isn’t an issue, 16 knots is perfectly appropriate. Barrelling along without looking where you are going… not so much.
the 59-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter following searches for a missing crew member of the Solong.
Smoke is continuing to billow from the Solong, but Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said both ships were expected to remain afloat.
German firm Ernst Russ, which owns the Solong, confirmed to the BBC that the man arrested is the master of the ship.
It said he, along with the rest of the crew, were assisting the investigation.
A crew member from the cargo ship was still missing and presumed dead after a search and rescue operation ended on Monday evening, according to Transport Minister Mike Kane.
Whitehall sources have told the BBC there were Russians and Filipinos among the crew of the Solong.
Almost no tanker (there’s bound to be an exception out there somewhere) ever has anything other than many smaller tanks - anything less makes free surface effect unmanageable, for a start.
This is not (as it has been described by some sources) what would be called an oil tanker in the industry. It is a chemical/oil products tanker. It’s used for carrying allotments (called “parcels” in the industry) of chemicals and clean oil products (gasoline, jet a, diesel, naptha etc). They have even more small compartments than many other tankers so they can separate parcels for various customers.
Stena is something of a specialist in the trade. They are a Swedish owned outfit but presumably flagged this vessel in the US to get access to the US military market.
