MOL Comfort

MOL Comfort

The sister ship APL Poland

Ship data flag  Bahamas other ship names APL Russia (2008–2012) Ship type Container Ship class MOL C class Callsign C6XF2 home port Nassau Owner Ural Container Carriers Shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines, Tokyo Shipyard Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagasaki Build number 2234 Keel laying August 23, 2007 Launch March 8, 2008 takeover July 14, 2008 Whereabouts Broken at sea on June 17, 2013; decreased.

Ship dimensions and crew length 316.00 m ( Lüa ) 303.18 m ( Lpp ) width 45.60 m Side height 25.00 m Draft Max. 14,535 m measurement 86,692 GT , 48,825 NRZ   crew 26th

Machine system machine 1 × Mitsubishi- Wärtsilä RT-flex96C eleven- cylinder two-stroke diesel engine Machine performance 62,920 kW (85,547 hp) Top speed 25.25 kn (47 km / h) propeller 1 × fixed propeller

Transport capacities Load capacity 90,613 dwt Container 8,110 TEU

Others Classifications Nippon Kaiji Kyōkai Registration numbers IMO no. 9358761

The container ship MOL Comfort was built in 2008 for the Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL). It broke up in the Arabian Sea on June 17, 2013 , and both parts subsequently sank. It is the largest container ship loss that has occurred to date.

Construction and time of use

The MOL Comfort was one of a series of twelve ships of the same type, six of which were built in 2007 and 2008 as MOL C-Class for the Tokyo shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines . Further sister ships were delivered to other shipping companies. After delivery in July 2008, the ship was put into service as APL Russia in charter with the Singaporean shipping company American President Lines . On June 1, 2012, MOL took over the ship again and renamed it MOL Comfort . The ship was used on the route between Asia and Europe and completed the last “Special Survey” on May 29, 2013 - an examination that takes place every five years - by the classification society Nippon Kaiji Kyōkai .

Average in June 2013

On June 17, 2013, the MOL Comfort was on a voyage from Singapore to Jeddah in the Arabian Sea about 430  nautical miles south-east of Salala in a bad weather area when it initially showed severe dents in the midship area, soon afterwards buckled sharply and finally broke into two parts. The crew of 26 , consisting of eleven Russians, one Ukrainian and 14 Filipinos, was able to save itself in two life rafts and a lifeboat and was picked up by the Yantian Express as part of the rescue operation coordinated by the MRCC Mumbai . At the end of 2013, the ship command and crew of the Yantian Express were awarded the rescue medal in silver by the DGzRS for their work.

The fore and aft of the damaged vessel initially retained their buoyancy and drifted on independently of one another at a speed of around two knots in an east-northeast direction. The forecastle was at position 13 ° 00'N 60 ° 40'E, the stern 19 nautical miles east-northeast of it. MOL signed a rescue contract. On June 24, an escort ship from Jebel Ali and three tugs arrived in the area of ​​the drifting parts of the ship. Specialists from Smit Internationale and Nippon Salvage inspected the two halves of the hull in order to prepare for the towing. In addition, other salvage tugs were on their way to the damaged vessel. On June 26th, the towing of the fore in the direction of the Persian Gulf began, the aft sank on June 27, 2013 near the position 14 ° 26'N; 066 ° 26'E at a water depth of about 4000 meters. Around 1700 containers were lost in the process and around 1500 t of heavy oil sank with the aft ship. On July 6, a fire broke out in the rear of the fore ship to Suhar during the dragging , which the escort ships could not control. In addition, the Indian fire-fighting ship Samudra Prahari took part in the fire fighting. On July 10, around 7 p.m. (UTC), the severely damaged forecastle sank at position 19 ° 56'N; 065 ° 25'E in the Indian Ocean about 3000 meters deep at this point. The remaining 2,400 containers and 1,600 tons of heavy fuel oil went under with the forecastle. Individual containers were washed up on the Indian west coast and on the Laccadives .

Consequences of the accident

On board the ship, which was insured for around 66 million US dollars by Mitsui Sumitomo, Tokio Marine and Sompo, were 4,382 containers (7041  TEU ) with cargo worth around 300 million US dollars.

Due to the so far unexplained cause of the breakthrough of the MOL Comfort , a joint investigation of the sister ships MOL Creation , MOL Charisma , MOL Celebration , MOL Courage , MOL Competence and MOL Commitment by the shipping company MOL, the shipyard Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Classification society Nippon Kaiji Kyokai started. As a first measure, the ships were examined by the respective crews while they were in operation and a preliminary plan for reducing the hull loads was drawn up. MOL later decided to take all of the shipping company's sister ships out of service and to reinforce their hulls. The hulls of the ships MOL Celebration , MOL Courage and MOL Creation were reinforced until mid-August 2013, and the work on the other ships MOL Charisma , MOL Competence and MOL Commitment was carried out in the following months.

The accident investigation group of the classification society NK announced interim results of the investigation at the end of October 2013. Due to the ingress of water in the midship area of ​​the ship's bottom, which was detected at the beginning of the accident, the group assumes that the damage was caused by the ship's bottom structure. The examination of the floor areas of the sister ships revealed denting damage in the same area , which is a possible cause of the failure of the floor construction, whereupon the sister ships in the said area were strengthened preventively. In the interim report of December 2013, the accident investigation group announced that the cause of the midship damage could not be reproduced in various simulations using the finite element method with the given parameters. The investigation commission assumes that the trunk loads during the accident were either higher than assumed, or that the previous damage caused by the dents in the floor was higher than assumed, or that a combination of both of the aforementioned effects applied. The final report was presented on September 30, 2014.

In February 2014, MOL sued the shipbuilding company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the Tokyo District Court for damages for the subsequent reinforcement of the sister ships of the sunken MOL Comfort .

In March 2015, the International Association of Classification Societies issued new guidelines for the construction of large container ships, which are intended to prevent marine casualties such as those on the MOL Comfort in the future.

technology

The ships of the MOL C class are post- Panamax container ships. The ship's superstructures and the engine room below are about four fifths of the length aft. Compared to other 8000 TEU ships, the ships of this class were designed to be a 40-foot bay shorter and a row of containers wider. The total capacity is slightly over 8,100  TEU , of which 3,494 TEU can be stowed in the holds and 4,616 TEU on deck. Later units in the series have a higher total capacity of 8,450 TEU. There are connections for 630  refrigerated containers .

The main motor used, the Mitsubishi Wärtsilä RT-flex96C, acts directly on a fixed propeller and enables a speed of up to 25.25 knots. In order to meet the current MARPOL regulations, all bunker tanks are arranged within the double hull .

In terms of shipbuilding, what was remarkable about the ship type of the units built by Mitsubishi was the first-time use of high-strength YP47 steel of grade "E" (YP460MPa) with a tensile strength of around 461 N / mm² for the hull . The new steel grade was developed by Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and its use was tested in cooperation with the classification society Nippon Kaiji Kyokai.

Web links

• Report of the investigation into the sinking of the “MOL Comfort” in the Indian Ocean , Bahamas Maritime Authority, September 2015 (PDF file, 1.5 MB)
• Press Release of Mitsui OSK Lines, from 17 June 2013 (English)
• Merchant vessel 'Mol Comfort' splits into two off Mumbai coast, crew rescued . In: The Indian Express , June 17, 2013 (English)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Port call list from Mitsui OSK Lines ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
2. ↑ Ship details at Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (English)
3. ↑ Giant container breached - Hamburg freighter rescued 26 seamen , Kieler Nachrichten, June 18, 2013.
4. ↑ DGzRS honors rescue on the high seas , German Society for Rescue of Shipwrecked People, press release of December 2, 2013.
5. ↑ Update (No.2): Incident Involving the Containership MOL Comfort , MOL press release from June 18, 2013.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Update (No.9): Incident Involving the Containership MOL Comfort , MOL press release from June 24, 2013.
7. ↑ Update (No.10): Incident Involving the Containership MOL Comfort , MOL press release from June 26, 2013.
8. ↑ Urgent Update (No.12): Incident Involving the Containership MOL Comfort , MOL press release from June 27, 2013.
9. ↑ Fighting fire on "MOL Comfort" ( memento of the original from July 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Daily port report, July 9, 2013. 
10. ↑ Update (No.25): Incident Involving the Containership MOL Comfort , MOL press release of July 11, 2013.
11. ↑ Containers 'MOL Comfort' aangespoeld op stranden , Nieuwsblad Transport, July 25, 2013. Accessed July 30, 2013.
12. ↑ MOL COMFORT Cost Insurers $ 400M at Maritime Connector , September 20, 2013 (English)
13. ↑ Achmea vreest het ergste voor 'MOL Comfort' en lading , Nieuwsblad Transport, June 19, 2013 (Dutch).
14. ↑ Safety Enhancement on Sister Vessels of the Containership MOL Comfort , MOL press release of June 27, 2013.
15. ↑ MOLPower.com: Announcementdetail. (No longer available online.) In: cms.molpower.com. Archived from the original on December 11, 2016 ; accessed on December 11, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ↑ Three MOL freighters already upgraded , THB - Deutsche Schiffahrts-Zeitung, August 13, 2013.
17. ↑ Preliminary Findings Into MOL COMFORT Casualty Released at The Maritime Eexecutive , November 1, 2013 (English)
18. ↑ Interim Report of Committee on Large Container Ship Safety , Committee on Large Container Ship Safety, Japan, December 2013 (English)
19. ↑ Final report
20. ↑ Mike Wackett: MOL sues shipbuilder after Comfort loss, as insurance claims look set to spiral at The Loadstar , February 7, 2014 (English)
21. ↑ IACS: Press Release March 5, 2015 , March 5, 2015. ( Memento of the original from April 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
22. ↑ MOL press release ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
23. ↑ YP47 - Ensuring the safety of ultra large containerships - The development of YP47 high strength steel and methods for arresting brittle cracks in ClassNK Magazine 2008 , Vol. 60, pp. 6–9 (English; PDF; 5.8 MB)