This is from the initial report:
To start with, flooding occurred in three watertight compartments on board ‘KNM Helge Ingstad’: the aft generator room, the orlob deck’s crew quarters and the stores room. There was some uncertainty as to whether the steering engine room, the aft most compartment, was also filling up with water. Based on this damage, the crew, supported by the vessel’s stability documents, assessed the vessel as having ‘poor stability’ status, but that it could be kept afloat. If more compartments were flooded, the status would be assessed as ‘vessel lost’ on account of further loss of stability.
Next, the crew found that water from the aft generator room was running into the gear room
via the hollow propeller shafts and that the gear room was filling up fast. From the gear room,
the water then ran into and was flooding the aft and fore engine rooms via the stuffing boxes in the bulkheads. This meant that the flooding became substantially more extensive than
indicated by the original damage. Based on the flooding of the gear room, it was decided to
prepare for evacuation.
