Riverdance (ship)
 The MS Riverdance in Warrenpoint, 2006
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The Riverdance was a RoRo ship . It gained media attention when it ran aground off Cleveleys in England in 2008 after a storm and, despite several attempts to get it going again, remained there on the beach until it was scrapped at the place of the accident.
history
It was built in 1977 as “Mashala” by Rickmers shipyard in Bremerhaven for Mashala Shipping Co. and used in the Mediterranean. Since 1996 she has worked as Riverdance - together with her sister ship Moondance - for Seatruck Navigation Ltd. in service between Warrenpoint in County Down , Northern Ireland and Heysham , Lancashire , in the Irish Sea .
Average 2008
On January 31, 2008, the ship cast off from Warrenpoint on the east coast of Northern Ireland in the late morning and headed for Heysham, a ferry terminal near Lancaster . There were 19 crew members and four passengers on board. The voyage across the Irish Sea was initially without problems despite the rough seas and the stormy wind from the west-southwest, even after the wind increased to 9-10 Bft , the ship only carried out slight, even rolling movements of a few degrees. After passing the 20 m depth line on the approach to the coast, the swell became stronger, and the roll of the ship also increased. At around 6:30 p.m. UTC , the first series of increasing rolling movements followed, which increased rapidly from 10 ° to 25 °, but then subsided again. When a patrol of the occupation to check the lashing of on the weather deck loaded trailer another strong roles occurred in which the ship finally more strongly to the port side heeled . The trailer, which was tearing itself loose and slipping, temporarily blocked the control crew's retreat into the deckhouse.
In the emergency was contrary to the planned course in the Lune Deep - ton initiated a starboard turn to 19:25 UTC to get the bow into the wind and thus to defuse the situation. During this turn, the ship reached a heel of up to 50 ° to port. After the ship was successfully in the wind after this maneuver, the list decreased to 30 - 40 °. However, shortly after this maneuver, one of the two main diesel engines failed due to insufficient oil pressure, so that the course into the wind could not be maintained with the remaining engine alone. The Riverdance fell to port and came into a position in which she was exposed to the side of the storm and waves. At 19:41 the master informed the Liverpool Coast Guard Station that the ship was in serious trouble, and at 19:56 UTC Mayday was radioed. After 9 p.m. the rescue helicopter, which had meanwhile arrived, began to winch recovery of the four passengers and four crew members that were no longer absolutely necessary under the most difficult weather conditions.
First emergence
During the preparations to evacuate the ship, crew members managed to get the trim and ballast water pumps going again. During the flight of the first eight people, the list could be reduced to 20 °. The situation eased somewhat due to the reduced list. The ship, which has meanwhile drifted into shallower waters, got ground contact and during the second helicopter rescue at 10:48 p.m. remained at right angles to the coast on the sandy beach in front of the promenade of Cleveleys , a village about 6 km north of Blackpool, at 53 ° 52'23 , 5 " N , 3 ° 3 '8.6" W lie. The ship still followed the wave movements, the list was reduced to 5 - 10 ° to port. At 11.09 p.m. a further six crew members were flown out by a second rescue helicopter. A rump crew of nine volunteers remained on board. With the ebb tide , the ship initially stabilized on the sandy beach.
Final stranding
While the ship was lying stable on the sandbank at low tide, preparations were made to move the ship free again when the tide came in. For this purpose, trim and ballast corrections were made, but these could only be made as a rough estimate, since an exact bearing of the water levels in the ballast tanks would only have been possible from the main deck. However, this was not accessible due to the slipped vehicles. The two main diesels were also prepared for take-off. Since no suitable tugs were available, it was intended to maneuver back into open water with your own power and the use of the bow thruster as soon as the water level rose and the ship floated up. At around 1:12 a.m. on the following day, February 1, 2008, the ship began to pound away from the bottom. The wind was still force 10. Both main diesels could be started. However, the attempts to clear the sea led to the ship being pushed even further onto the beach towards the shore and finally turned parallel to the shore. At 3:40 a.m. the Riverdance lay with its bow in a southerly direction along the shore line and rolled heavily under the sea surging to the side. The main engines were stopped and further attempts were postponed until the high tide at 6:00 a.m. However, due to the lateral waves, the ship began to roll strongly to starboard, tilted and remained at an incline of 30 ° in the tidal beach area. Since the sea water inlets for the engine cooling were now above the water line, the auxiliary diesel engines for the power supply failed, which made further attempts to drive free. After another Mayday , the rescue helicopter reappeared at Blackpool Airport . At 5:16 a.m., the evacuation was completed with no loss of life.
Rescue attempts and demolition
After the stranding, a salvage contract was made with the salvage shipping company Smit Internationale with the aim of removing the vehicle from the beach and getting it back on the road. First of all, the fuel tanks were drilled and the bunker oil was sucked off and other environmentally hazardous substances were removed. Due to its location in the tidal range, however, the ship was exposed to several storms in the following weeks, which led to further damage and water ingress. In addition, the impact of the surf increased the list, as the ship sank on one side in the sand until a lateral position of over 100 ° was finally reached. As erecting and recommissioning no longer seemed possible at this point in time, it was decided to dismantle the ship on the spot. The demolition work was carried out during the ebb-tide phases, when the ship was dry, and was completed in October 2008. There was no environmental pollution.
In the months in which the ship was on the beach, the scenery developed into a temporary attraction for disaster tourism . For the period from February to April 2008, the number of onlookers was estimated at over 100,000. The rush led to traffic jams and parking problems on the streets around the promenade.
Determination of causes
The investigation report Report on the investigation into the grounding, and subsequent loss, of the ro-ro cargo vessel Riverdance 18/2009 by the British investigative authority Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) assumes several causes for the uncontrollable list, which ultimately leads to stranding and resulted in the loss of the ship. A main point were the high and steep waves coming up from the aft, which ran a little faster than the ship and led to a loss of stability ("surfing"); this periodic loss of stability in turn triggered the strong, progressive rolling vibrations. Due to the relatively low stability margin of the ship, it did not straighten completely after such a roll. Before casting off, the existing possibilities of trimming and ballasting were not fully used in order to achieve more stability in view of the bad weather to be expected. In addition, there were shifts of cargo within the semi-trailers, while the lashings of the vehicles to the deck themselves remained largely intact, as well as seawater penetrating through unsecured openings and incorrect operation of the trim tank fittings. Speculations about a single monster wave as the cause of the accident ( "freak wave" ) were not confirmed by the investigative commission, since the observed wave height of seven meters at the accident location is not exceptional depending on the wind and tide situation.
Web links
- "Back To The Beach" - private page with documentation of the situation after the beaching, part 1 , accessed on March 20, 2016
- "Back To The Beach" - private page with documentation of the situation after the beaching, part 2 , accessed on March 20, 2016
Footnotes
- ↑ Rescue crews tell of sea horror , article on blackpoolgazette.co.uk of February 1, 2008, English language, accessed March 20, 2016
- ↑ Grounding and subsequent loss of ro-ro cargo vessel Riverdance , Accident Investigation Report 18/2009 of the MAIB , English, accessed on March 16, 2016
- ↑ Storm Victims Prominent In First Quarter Workload TUG-Magazine, Company Smit , page 7, English language, accessed on March 21, 2016
- ↑ Riverdance Shipwreck , report on liveblackpool.info from January 28, 2013 on the fifth anniversary of the event ( memento of the original from March 25, 2016 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 language, accessed March 21, 2016
