NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Container ship grounding in English Channel
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2009 Nov 07, 07:56 -0800
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2009 Nov 07, 07:56 -0800
George: How about running this URL through TinyURL (www.tinyurl.com)? It's a way of making absurdly long URLs like this one into short, eight-character ones. I tried this URL and I couldn't bring it up. It was not truncated by my email reader. Thanks Lu George Huxtable wrote: > This was an event that occurred in early 2008, about about which there seems > to have been little publicity at the time. > > It concerns an immense German-registered container ship, Cortesia, of 90,000 > tons, which grounded on the Varne bank, at the most dangerous spot in the > English Channel. Trying to understand why the ship had come to a stop. the > Chief Officer, on watch, woke the Captain to report engine failure! > > Anyone interested will find a full account in the report of the enquiry, > which is careful not to apportion blame, at this website- > > http://www.bsu-bund.de/cln_016/nn_101744/SharedDocs/pdf/EN/Investigation__Report/2009/Investigation__Report__01__08,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf > > (you may have to cobble-and-paste the fragments of that absurdly-long > address together.) > > I am reasonably familiar with that area, which at night is lit up like > Piccadilly Circus. The ship had come to a stop less than half-a mile from > (and on the wrong side of) an immense cardinal pillar buoy, halfway between > two such buoys, marking the sides of the bank; buoys which carry radar > reflectors and with bright quick-flashing lights. > > It wasn't foggy, though there had been light rain, visibilty several miles. > > The estimate was that somewhat in excess of 15 navigational alarms must have > been activated. These had been taken to be engine alarms, neglected, and > presumably switched off. > > The long, thin, Varne Bank lies slap in the middle of the SW-bound > separation zone, at its narrowest and busiest point, aligned with the > channel. It's only 3 metres below chart datum, and SW-going traffic has to > decide whether to pass NW or SE of it, rather than ploughing through the > middle. > > Cortesia went on at an hour before high water, and was lucky to come off > again, without serious damage, at the next HW, hauled by four big tugs. > > For anyone interested in that sort of thing, the report makes salutary > reading, but it does contain its share of officialese gobbledegook. > > George. > > contact George Huxtable, at george@hux.me.uk > or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222) > or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NavList message boards: www.fer3.com/arc Or post by email to: NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList+@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---