“of course a freak” - I disagree!
TD/TS/Hurr Lorenzo was in NHC advisories since 22/23 Sep. FNMOC, GFS, ECMWF all predicted in plenty of time, and in (rare) agreement, what it would become & where it would go.
Hence my exasperation expressed in post # 4 above.
Okay, have it your way. Moreover I just repeated what the meteorologists are saying about this hurricane that was developing in such an easterly and northerly position as was not seen ever before.
Please be advised that the captain probably was not following the NHC advisories. He didnot know about Lorenzo, otherwise he would have steered the ship in a different direction.
It’s possible the captain didn’t expect a hurricane to be a threat on that voyage because it’s an unusual event:
The bottom line is that Category 5 storms are already rare, and Hurricane Lorenzo is unprecedented in the record-keeping era,” said Marshall Shepherd, a University of Georgia atmospheric sciences professor,
We just don’t see hurricanes at this intensity so far east and north because water temperatures are typically too cold and wind shear conditions can also be restrictive.”
. Crews tend to stop paying attention to the forecasts in the tropics if tropical cyclones are not expected, the forecasts tend not to change much day to day.
Nothing to do with global warming, nothing to see here folks, move along…
So Mr. T. is, as always, right after all… He deserves a Nobel prize for all his good works don’t you think?
I’m not bringing up this question as germane to the Bourbon Dolphin in particular, but rather as a question I always ask myself when a comparatively small ship goes down in heavy weather:
How many captains know that water flooding down fuel tank vents in heavy weather is a cause of vessel disablement? Water contaminated fuel on the tug Aiviq was the case of the grounding of the drill rig Kulluk in 2012. Yes, vents have check-valves (stainless steel balls) to prevent the intake of water. But they need to be tested regularly. Rookie stuff? Apparently not for the officers of the Aiviq.
If you lose your engines you’ve reduced your chances of surviving a storm by 50%.
Fair comment! It does make sense as our 2, 447 GT tugs, have LRIT but then they are also GMDSS A3…
Actually not sure I agree with this as nowadays the non-return elements are plastic and therefore don’t rust, what tends to get blocked on fuel tank air pipes is the gauze which variously rusts or gets painted over by an over zealous deck hand. The MV BRAER went down a few miles south of where I live because loose steel pipes sheared the air vents at deck level during a force 10 off Shetland in 1993. Also they had a single common vent for both the settling and service tanks which led to engine failure due to them not being able to clear water from either tank.
The Bourbon Dolphin also went down tragically west of here in heavy weather but due to different circumstances; we will have to wait and see whether similar ‘custom and practices’, both afloat and ashore contributed to this tragedy.
I remember with fondness a Gulf Stream crossing at night from Miami to Bimini in a strong October Noreaster with a load of puking divers. The rocking and rolling stirred up sediment from the bottom of the fuel tank and clogged the Racors, stopping us dead in the water. After restarting, losing power a few times and finally running out of spare filters, I started feeding the small 6 cylinder Ford Lehman directly out of 5 gallon buckets with extra diesel that had been stored on deck. It was a long night but it would have been a lot worse without the extra fuel stored in clean containers.
There’s nothing to make you question your career choice quite like hanging head down into a tiny engine compartment breathing in a combination of putrid bilge water and diesel fumes while the boat is bucking like a wild bronco.
We had problems trying to get the Deck Department to stop “storing” mops and whatever else they could fit in the Containment’s for our Aft FO Tanks. One time I found that someone put a small handy line down inside of it. I found this while making rounds after some bad weather. I had checked it before sailing and wasn’t happy when I found it and the Containment Tank full to the top!
It seems that the Bourbon Rhode sailed directly into the dangerous right forward quadrant of Lorenzo with the winds and seas more or less from behind or a bit on the port side, well until they probably decided due to the increasing wind force to turn into the wind. They were, you might say, sucked in and then towards the eye, that must have been a horrible experience.
I consider it a miracle that in these circumstances that there were three survivors. Those life rafts are really the best means of survival, I don’t think that a classic lifeboat could have survived this inferno. Very special.
The initial report that the tug was taking on water may mean that problems developed early on rather than just a simple floundering or capsize. That may mean that the tug had been in serious trouble or even gone down before it hit the worse of it.
The crew that survived may have abandoned the tug in more favorable conditions than the worse in the system at the time.
I think that your analysis is right, that could very well be what happened. I expect that the survivors could shed some light on these last moments but until now they are keeping a low profile, that is the Owners and authorities. Probably for insurance reasons?
Fair go here -the survivors have probably PTSD as well as being faced with Police, accident investigators both company and statutory so will not be singing like canaries.
I would also wonder whether Masters this side of the pond actually understand hurricanes -we have F12s but not TRSs so lack of knowledge/ understanding would be a line of enquiry.
I understood that the Braer lost steerage because lose gear in the steering flat sheared off hydraulic pipes of the steering gear machinery. I have always made a point of checking the steering flat during my inspections.
Sorry, Braer lost way due to water ingress into fuel settling and service tanks -what remains of her lies not 30 miles from here. Amoco Cadiz lost steerage off France due to a design fault with the flanges that attached pipework to the main body of the single unit rotary vane steering gear which led to the adoption of double units or indeed 4 ram systems to provide redundancy. Braer led to ISM and DPAs and all plus double hulled tankers…
Another Bourbon update today - CROSS-AG changes search…
[oops, wrong language!]
By the looks of it the ship was poorly maintained, to say the least. However, no visible hull damage. Could be seaworthy as it was, hard to tell. Is it possible to date this picture?
There’s a date embedded in the photo. Second August if I read it right.
