The dramatic story of the last 18 hours of m tanker Erika can be toldfollowing an investigation which uncovered eye-witness evidence from crewmembers. The first clue to the danger was when she developed a moderate list.This appears to have been linked to internal leaks in one of the cargo tanks, aswell as worsening cracks and buckles on the deck and then a catastrophic failureof her hull. She eventually sank at around 0500, UTC, December 12, in rough seasin the Bay of Biscay, 40 miles off the coast of France but the drama on boardthe vessel actually began just before 1300, December 11. At that time, some ofher Indian crew of 26 felt the vessel listing to starboard while sailing withheavy seas at her starboard bow, reported waves of between four and five metres.Rough seas over the previous 24 hours had made any deck inspection impossible,so the vessel's log book does not note the state of the deck on December 10. Asthe list became apparent, the master sent the first distress signal while tryingto stabilise Erika by shifting ballast from one of the starboard ballasttanks. This first distress signal was received by the MRCC located at Etel.However, within a couple of hours, once Erika stabilised and it waspossible to alter course to allow the crew to check the state of the deck, themaster cancelled the distress call while heading towards St Nazaire, where alarge oil terminal was available. The decision to cancel the distress messagewas taken despite the first inspection revealing that the ullage in one of thecargo tanks, believed to be No. 3, was greater than originally recorded when thevessel was loaded in Dunkirk and that there was oil in one of the ballast tanks,believed to be No. 2 starboard. However, due to the distance of the vessel fromthe coast at that moment, there was nothing that the master could do to reducethe risk of sinking but to head towards St Nazaire, with expected time ofarrival being sometime on Sunday night due to her reduced speed. Moreover, hewould have felt confident that the vessel was in a good enough condition toreach that port. On Saturday afternoon, further inspections of the deck surfacerevealed a number of serious, gaping cracks, normal cracks and some buckles.From this point ahead, the situation was continuously screened by the crew, withthe status of the cracks reported not to be worsening throughout the afternoonand evening. This remained unchanged until just after midnight when thesituation suddenly worsened, with Erika again developing a strong list.About three hours later, 0300, Dec12, both the size and the number of thecracks on the deck began to increase quite rapidly. The final distress signalwas sent at around 0600 hrs and received by the Etel MRCC. The first helicopterarrived on the scene at around 0645, CET, and started recovering crew members.
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