I didn’t see this on here yet so I figured I would post.
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2012/dec/05/rescue-cargo-ship-north-sea
Hopefully they find more survivors
Search now called off for any more missing crew of the BALTIC ACE. Looks like 11 men lost and it shows that with all the fancy electronics we have at our disposal on the bridge, accidents still can happen and in the worse possible conditions. Something we must always remember.
Five bodies have so far been recovered but officials said there was “zero” chance of finding survivors in the icy waters.
“We have now stopped and we will not begin again tomorrow,” Coastguard spokesman Peter Westenberg said.
The Dutch defence ministry said the North Sea was treacherous when the 485ft (148m) Baltic Ace collided with the 440ft (134m) container ship Corvus J near busy shipping lanes, some 40 miles off the coast of the southern Netherlands.
However, Panagiootis Kakoliris, operations manager at Stamco Ship Management Co Ltd, which managed the Baltic Ace, said the conditions were normal at the time of the collision.
“You cannot control some things. This happened in good weather, normal weather. There was good visibility, so I feel most probably there was a human error,” he said.
North Sea Ships Collide Off Coast Of Netherlands The collision occurred in one of the North Sea’s busiest shipping lanes
Baltic Ace, which was heading from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to Kotka in Finland with a crew of 24, sank shortly after the collision in 15 minutes.
The 23,500 tonne ship was carrying more than 1,400 new cars, most of them Mitsubishis, from Japan and Thailand.
Corvus J was on its way from Grangemouth in Scotland to Antwerp, Belgium, and was also damaged but assisted in the search for the missing crew of the sunken ship immediately afterwards.
Earlier, a massive air and sea rescue operation involving several helicopters, planes and two navy patrol ships recovered another body from the waters, bringing the confirmed death toll to five.
The Dutch Coastguard said it had given up any real hope of recovering any more survivors.
“Given the water temperature and the amount of time that’s passed, we don’t have any hope for more survivors,” said Westenberg.
It is thought some of the crew - from Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine and the Philippines - may have gone down with the stricken vessel.
NETHERLANDS Rescue 3 A Royal Dutch navy ship involved in the rescue operation
The other 13 crew members were rescued from the Baltic Ace despite strong winds and waves of up to 9.8ft (3m) hampering the operation.
Four were flown to a hospital in Rotterdam, seven taken by rescue helicopter to a hospital in Belgium and two were being treated on board a ship that found them.
Coastguard spokesman Marcel Oldenburger said they were “all in shock” and suffering from hypothermia, but their lives were not in danger.
Eleven crew members on board the Baltic Ace were Polish, according to Janusz Wolosz, second secretary at the Polish Embassy in The Hague.
The foreign ministry in Sofia said one Bulgarian national had been aboard the Baltic Ace but was among the 13 rescued sailors and was in good health.
The Philippines and Ukrainian embassies could not say how many of their nationals had been aboard.
The Dutch marine gendarmerie has launched a probe to determine the cause of the collision, and the police are in talks with the state prosecutor’s office about whether it falls part of their jurisdiction.
“This incident took place out of our territorial waters,” said Jos Klaren, a spokesman for the Dutch police.
The shipping lane where the accident happened is one of the busiest in the North Sea and an important passing point for ships sailing into Rotterdam port, Europe’s largest and the fifth-largest in the world.
Hey guys, there’s this great site called gCaptain.com and they cover all this stuff and more. http://gcaptain.com/tag/baltic-ace
I looked the two ships up and found the AIS tracks:
marinetraffic.com - Baltic Ace track
marinetraffic.com - Corvus J track
Purely from the tracks it looks like the Baltic Ace had the right of way. Also it looks like the AIS of the Corvus J was not functional for quite a while, including the time of the collision.
[I]Markus[/I]
If you watch the AIS tracks, it appears that the Ace altered to port?
I’m willing to bet that the crew of the ACE was probably not in compliance with their STCW hours. I’ve been in and out of Zeebrugge on a Ro/Ro and with ops at 2 docks, and 2 transits through the locks, there isn’t much time to any of the crew to rest. We were glad to have a North Sea pilot on board.
that’s the second “ACE” ship in a couple of years to have a casualty. … remember cougar ace up by the aleutians?