Maritime News Thread

AndyBoBandy · 14-09-2020 9:30pm

Vera Vast Steamroller wrote: »

Irish Ferries W.B Yeats currently anchored off Laytown / Gormanston area.

I won’t say what has come to my mind but does anyone have any factual info as to why it’s there ?

Not doing anything til tomorrow? So convenient to anchor at sea rather than occupy a berth in the port that might be needed by another Irish Ferries ship.

q85dw7osi4lebg · 14-09-2020 9:44pm

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Not doing anything til tomorrow? So convenient to anchor at sea rather than occupy a berth in the port that might be needed by another Irish Ferries ship.

It’s possible but I’ve lived here for decades and have never seen her anchor there (quite a distance from dub port). Hope that’s all it is !

Jim Gazebo · 14-09-2020 9:53pm

Vera Vast Steamroller wrote: »

Irish Ferries W.B Yeats currently anchored off Laytown / Gormanston area.

I won’t say what has come to my mind but does anyone have any factual info as to why it’s there ?

What has come to mind? Engine failure? Hardly go to anchor for that so far out of shelter.

q85dw7osi4lebg · 14-09-2020 9:54pm

Jim Gazebo wrote: »

What has come to mind? Engine failure? Hardly go to anchor for that so far out of shelter.

I was thinking more along the lines of a crew member or passenger with a temperature !

HeidiHeidi · 14-09-2020 9:57pm

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Not doing anything til tomorrow? So convenient to anchor at sea rather than occupy a berth in the port that might be needed by another Irish Ferries ship.

The usual spot for waiting for a berth in the port is the anchorage south of the shipping lane.... only two ships there at the moment so plenty of room. But I dont think I've ever seen a ferry there.

The website is showing it as due to depart tomorrow afternoon on schedule.

Atlantic Dawn · 14-09-2020 9:57pm

The usual anchorage point in Dublin Bay has 2 ships at anchor, perhaps given its size they needed to move it to the next available space. I've sometimes seen cargo ships at anchor where it is now.

AIS has it's arrival time in Dublin tomorrow morning at 9.21am.

Jim Gazebo · 14-09-2020 10:01pm

Vera Vast Steamroller wrote: »

I was thinking more along the lines of a crew member or passenger with a temperature !

Ah cool, would still be a strange way to deal with it.

Jim Gazebo · 14-09-2020 10:02pm

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

The usual anchorage point in Dublin Bay has 2 ships at anchor, perhaps given its size they needed to move it to the next available space. I've sometimes seen cargo ships at anchor where it is now.

AIS has it's arrival time in Dublin tomorrow morning at 9.21am.

9.21 ha ha that's gas from whoevers set it ðŸ˜‚

blackwhite · 15-09-2020 12:36am

Vera Vast Steamroller wrote: »

It’s possible but I’ve lived here for decades and have never seen her anchor there (quite a distance from dub port). Hope that’s all it is !

Is that not where they used to send Stena Foreteller on Monday’s during the spring when she had her day off from the french run?

Storm 10 · 16-09-2020 3:13pm

Left Hong Kong bound for Galway carrying a new state of the art ferry high speed ferry for the Galway To Aran Run which is being restored after many years, currently in Vietnam.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/photos/of/ships/shipid:3353398/#forward

Atlantic Dawn · 16-09-2020 7:34pm

Storm 10 wrote: »

Left Hong Kong bound for Galway carrying a new state of the art ferry high speed ferry for the Galway To Aran Run which is being restored after many years, currently in Vietnam.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/photos/of/ships/shipid:3353398/#forward

Think this is it...
https://www.facebook.com/AranIslandFerries/photos/a.289511221186093/1923818501088682/?type=3&theater

https://www.galwaydaily.com/news/transport/aran-islands-ferries-adding-irelands-largest-ferry-to-its-fleet/

blackwhite · 16-09-2020 10:18pm

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Think this is it...
https://www.facebook.com/AranIslandFerries/photos/a.289511221186093/1923818501088682/?type=3&theater

https://www.galwaydaily.com/news/transport/aran-islands-ferries-adding-irelands-largest-ferry-to-its-fleet/

I can see open deck seating being a great success on those winter voyages in Galway Bay :pac:

Atlantic Dawn · 17-09-2020 12:06am

blackwhite wrote: »

I can see open deck seating being a great success on those winter voyages in Galway Bay :pac:

They might have told the shipyard to get the grinders out when Covid hit :pac:

Storm 10 · 17-09-2020 10:20am

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Think this is it...
https://www.facebook.com/AranIslandFerries/photos/a.289511221186093/1923818501088682/?type=3&theater

https://www.galwaydaily.com/news/transport/aran-islands-ferries-adding-irelands-largest-ferry-to-its-fleet/

Thanks for that I forgot to add that link, looks to be a fine ship going to be off loaded in the Bay when she arrives.

Storm 10 · 17-09-2020 8:07pm

Island Ferries will reveal their new ferry tomorrow on their Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/273345052802710/posts/2007598279377370/

Storm 10 · 18-09-2020 11:28am

Here she is looking forward to a trip on her from Galway next year PG

https://www.facebook.com/AranIslandFerries/photos/pb.273345052802710.-2207520000../2008979159239282/?type=3&theater

Jim Gazebo · 29-09-2020 2:35pm

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/irish-mainport-targets-offshore-energy-business-with-new-ship-1.4366754%3fmode=amp

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/green-rebel-marine-to-create-80-jobs-in-cork-as-part-of-a-10m-investment-1.4366373?mode=amp

Interesting news, renewables the way forward.

neris · 30-09-2020 1:05pm

Upgrading of the middle pier in Howth to start next month. But still nothing on dredging the rest of the harbour

https://www.johnsiskandson.com/news/howth-heralds-significant-win-for-sisk-civils-team

Atlantic Dawn · 30-09-2020 1:12pm

neris wrote: »

Upgrading of the middle pier in Howth to start next month. But still nothing on dredging the rest of the harbour

https://www.johnsiskandson.com/news/howth-heralds-significant-win-for-sisk-civils-team

Here's some slides of the harbour under contruction during the 1980's...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQfkKkS5Ucw

Tabnabs · 01-10-2020 10:04am

P&O suffering badly from the OCVID19 related downturn and starting to wind up unprofitable operations. Hull – Zeebrugge route will be scrapped and PRIDE OF YORK and PRIDE OF BRUGES sold (fresh meat for the Irish Sea?). Their Dover route is being reduced also with no return of the PRIDE OF BURGUNDY or EUROPEAN SEAWAY which are currently laid up.

neris · 01-10-2020 12:49pm

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Here's some slides of the harbour under contruction during the 1980's...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQfkKkS5Ucw

Few videos on the RTE archives aswell about it

Tabnabs · 05-10-2020 10:16am

What the local officials are calling a possible "road-rage" incident :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILMXXBmyFe0

Tabnabs · 05-10-2020 11:35am

New evidence emerges in Europe’s worst peacetime maritime disaster - the sinking of MS Estonia in 1994

For a quarter of a century, a lack of firm evidence has prevented any real challenge to the official story of how, on a stormy September night, more than 850 people came to die in Europe’s worst peacetime maritime disaster since the second world war.

Now Henrik Evertsson may have found some. “We do not speculate, and we draw no conclusions,” the Swedish documentary film-maker said, carefully. “We are just putting facts on the table. But for 26 years now, they have said that what we have found did not exist. So it is quite big.”

At 6.30pm on 27 September 1994, the ferry MS Estonia – the largest ship then flying the flag of the young Baltic republic, and a symbol of recently regained independence – set sail from Tallinn on a routine overnight crossing to Stockholm.
Hole discovered in hull of Baltic ferry that sank killing 852
Read more

On board were 803 passengers, most of them Swedish, and 186 crew, most of them Estonian. The conditions were rough – force 8 winds and waves up to 6 metres – but not unusual for the Baltic Sea in autumn. All other scheduled ferries were at sea.

At about 1am, a heavy metallic bang was heard – caused, the accident report said, by a large wave. At about 1.15am the ship’s bow visor lifted, wrenching its doors open. Water poured in; within 15 minutes, the Estonia had developed a 60-degree list.

A mangled mayday signal was sent. Survivors later described torrents of seawater pouring through cabin windows, ceilings and doors. At 1.50am the Estonia sank, stern first, in international waters about 40km south-southeast of the Finnish island of Utö.

Only 138 people were rescued, one of whom died in hospital. Most of the 852 who perished drowned, although a third of the 300-odd who reached the outer decks died of hypothermia. Only 93 bodies were ever recovered, the last 18 months later.

The 1997 report by an accident investigation committee set up jointly by Estonia, Sweden and Finland concluded that the locks on the bow visor failed, allowing it to tear free and expose the doors and ramp, which gave way, flooding the car deck.

“But the surviving witnesses – whose testimony really didn’t feature in the report – were clear that it all started with that bang,” Evertsson said. “It was a bang that people felt, not just that they heard. And the ship went down so incredibly fast.”

Groups representing the victims’ families have long called for a fresh investigation, saying the bang, and the speed with which the ship sank, were consistent with a collision. Others, fuelled by evidence the Estonia had carried military equipment during that September, blamed an explosion – which two 2005 inquiries ruled out.

Resisting calls to raise the wreck and bury the dead, the Swedish government initially proposed covering the whole vessel, lying in about 80 metres of water, in a concrete shell, but eventually backed down in the face of a public outcry.

But in 1995, the governments of Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia and the UK signed a treaty declaring the site a marine grave and prohibiting any further exploration of the wreckage, on penalty of two years in prison – further stoking fears that they may have something to hide.
From the archive: Death ferry sailed into Baltic storm with faulty door seals
Read more

“We could have just reported the various theories and left it at that,” said Evertsson, who with his colleague Bendik Mondal led the team behind a new five-part Discovery Networks documentary released this week, Estonia: the Find that Changes Everything.

“But we decided the only responsible course of action was go and look. We wanted to see if there was any evidence of a collision – a hole, for example. For 26 years, the authorities have claimed the Estonia’s hull was intact, that no external damage had been observed. We decided to see.”

Hoping to avoid prosecution, the film-makers chartered a boat flying the flag of Germany – the only Baltic Sea state not to have signed the 1995 treaty – and sent down a camera attached to “a sort of underwater drone”, said Evertsson.

“We scanned the port side, from bow to stern, just the outside. We didn’t go near the inside. We saw nothing. We scanned the starboard side – and about a third of the way along, everything suddenly went dark. It was a hole, way bigger than a film frame. I mean, a huge hole: 4 metres high, 1.2 metres wide.”

The documentary cites a Norwegian marine technology professor, Jørgen Amdahl of Trondheim University, as saying the damage – which he estimated was caused by a collision with an object weighing between 1,000 and 5,000 tonnes, travelling at between two and four knots – could have played “a major part” in the sinking.

The film-makers’ findings, made public for the first time last week, have prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity. In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Estonia, Finland and Sweden said they had “agreed that verification of the new information presented in the documentary will be carried out”.

Finland’s foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, said the footage appeared to be genuine, adding: “It wasn’t caused by an explosion. It would apparently take a big hit to the side of the ship to cause a hole like that – but that is all we know.”

Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Löfven, said the country’s accident investigation board would examine the evidence. He insisted Sweden “has not lied” about the ship’s fate, and would “rule nothing out”, including new dives, of any new probe.

Estonia’s prime minister, Jüri Ratas, said the documentary’s findings “raise questions that have to be answered”, adding that his country would be taking the lead “to ensure respect for the wreck, and the transparency of the process”.
Sound of silence signals catastrophe
Read more

Margus Kurm is a former state prosecutor and the head of a 2007 Estonian investigation that expressed doubts about the 1997 report’s conclusion that the water had entered through the bow doors. He told local media “a collision with a submarine” could have been to blame – and suggested a Swedish sub was in the area.

For Lennart Berglund, head of the Swedish Estonia relatives association, SEA, Stockholm must now “tell us the truth”. For 20 years, he said, “we have been demanding another investigation, citing experts who say the ship could not have sunk that fast unless it was holed below the waterline. It has been consistently denied. Now we know.”

As a Swedish national, Evertsson finds himself facing prosecution in Gothenburg district court for violating a protected site. He is surprised by the charge, which he denies. “We did not disturb the grave,” he said, “and what we discovered is clearly information that should be in the public domain.”

The reaction from victims’ relatives has been overwhelming. “I have to recharge my phone four, five times a day,” he said. “They are calling from all over Europe, thanking us, many of them crying. Maybe now, they say, we will get some real answers.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/04/maybe-now-well-get-some-answers-film-maker-challenges-official-story-of-estonia-ferry-disaster

Tabnabs · 06-10-2020 9:40am

At 9pm Monday 5th October, Holyhead Coastguard Operations Centre received a report of a missing crew man from a ferry on passage from Dublin to Holyhead and launched a wide scale search involving Porthdynllaen RNLI lifeboat, Holyhead RNLI all weather lifeboat and inshore lifeboat, Moelfre RNLI lifeboat, HM Coastguard's fixed wing aircraft and the rescue helicopter from the Irish Coastguard as well as North Wales Police for port and vessel searches.

The crew man was last seen between 3.30 and 4pm on Monday 5th October and was found to be missing during the voyage to Holyhead.

HM Coastguard has coordinated a wide scale air and sea search overnight covering over 1,000 square nautical miles with nothing found. HM Coastguard's fixed wing aircraft and the Coastguard Rescue helicopter from Caernarfon are scheduled to make an overflight of the search area based on the latest calculated search area this morning (Tuesday 6th October).

http://hmcoastguard.blogspot.com/2020/10/search-for-missing-crewman-irish-sea.html

Dreadful news.

AndyBoBandy · 06-10-2020 9:48am

Jesus that's horrendous...

The sheer panic of being in the water, and seeing the ship steaming off must be absolutely horrific.

I always think of that poor Irish teenage girl who went overboard from a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico(?) a few years back. I think at night too. A horrendous way to go.

scotchy · 06-10-2020 10:44am

Tabnabs wrote: »

http://hmcoastguard.blogspot.com/2020/10/search-for-missing-crewman-irish-sea.html

Dreadful news.

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-ferries-crew-member-missing-5225000-Oct2020/

.

Atlantic Dawn · 14-10-2020 10:41pm

Storm 10 wrote: »

Island Ferries will reveal their new ferry tomorrow on their Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/273345052802710/posts/2007598279377370/

Just off Cape Town
https://twitter.com/AranIslandFerry/status/1315583289902731264