THE MAERSK TIGRIS INCIDENT

The Maersk Tigris in Damietta Port. Photo the Port Authority

On 28th April Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized the container ship Maersk Tigris as it was transiting the Straits of Hormuz. It was then taken into Iranian coastal waters and is today, 30th April, anchored close to the port of Bandur Abbas. Initial reports said that the ship had been seized due to trespass into Iranian waters, and it is true that ships entering the Arabian Gulf do in general pass through Iranian international waters. Now it seems that this was an arrest due to a claim by an Iranian company that a cargo shipped by Maersk ten years ago never reached its destination. However the Maersk company in Copenhagen appears to be bewildered by this claim, and in any case such actions usually depend on a ship being in port and having a writ nailed to the mast.

But an aspect of this story might relate to the possible actions by the country in which the ship is registered, to keep the crew safe. The crew mainly consisting, according to the managers, of eastern Europeans and Asians were in good spirits, and apparently an American warship has been sent to the area. One might think that the ship was owned by Maersk Line a Danish company, but actually it is on time charter to that organisation and is managed by Rickmers which is probably a German company which manages 110 vessels. They have said that the ship is owned by “various prívate investors”.  

 So probably we should turn to the country in which the ship is registered to initiate negotiations with the Iranians to get it back. This is the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a group of atolls in the Pacific close to the equator, with a population of a little more than 68,000 people. The country achieved self rule in 1986 and has a “Compact of Free Association” with the United States. In the administration of their registry they are supported by International Registries Inc, which I think is based somewhere in the United States. This confusing situation illustrates how difficult it is to keep ships safe on the high seas today.

THE MARITIME LABOUR CONVENTION 2006

Over in the US Gulf there is still a bit of action in the ship building sector, even though elsewhere construction is slowing down, and one assumes will eventually come to a standstill, while we await the next boom in the oil price. However, Harvey Gulf Marine recently issued a press release concerning a series of six dual fuel, LNG or diesel, powered platform ships which  are gradually entering service. A spokeman for the company said that “while the owner and the vessel are not beholden to the new MLC2006 regulations” they meet and exceed current requirements for  seafarer welfare (I have paraphrased quite a long statement). But I wondered why the owner was not beholden to MLC2006, the marine labour convention which governs the conditions under which seafarers go to sea. Well, as it turns out despite the fact that more than 60 countries have signed up, the United States is not one of them.

FROM RIG ZONE

GSF Explorer from Rigzone.

I try not to overdo the offshore input into the newsletter, but actually it’s what I know most about, so sometimes it can’t be helped. And anyway the departure of the GSF Explorer to the breakers may be of general interest.

The vessel was built in 1972 on behalf of the CIA Special Activities Division, with the purpose of recovering a sunken Russian submarine from very deep water north of Hawaii  where it had sunk in 1968. The submarine had been lurking there equipped with atomic torpedoes and missiles, with the idea that if necessary it could launch its payload against the US west coast. The ship was called the Hughes Glomar Explorer and was billed as being constructed in order to recover manganese nodules from the seabed. 

Some time in 1974 it went out and attempted the recovery of the submarine, and although sources differ in their understanding of what had happened, the most likely result was that only the bow of the sub was actually recovered. The ship then returned to port and the US government tried to find a use for it. 

Later, after some bumpy times including lay-up, the ship was converted into a DP drill ship and leased by Global Marine. Global Marine became part of Santa Fe and the whole was acquired by Transocean in 2007. Later, in 2010 Transocean bought the ship for $15 million. This sounds like a bargain, part-icularly since even in 2013 they were achieving rates of over $400,000 a day for it. But old ships are difficult to keep going, so now the GSF Explorer, the source of endless rumours and numerous fictional works, is finally to be dismembered.

THE CITY OF CAIRO

The City of Cairo from the Internet.

It has been many years since the City of Cairo was in the news, but last week a press release told us that 100 tons of silver coins, the property of the British Government, had been recovered from the wreck of the ship in 5750 metres of water in the South Atlantic. The recovery of the silver has stimulated some interest in the original disaster which was unusual, in that only six of the passengers and crew died when the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine, but many of those who took to the boats died in the subsequent weeks..

The City of Cairo, one of the Ellerman City Line cargo liners, built in Hull in 1915, had started its voyage in Bombay where it had loaded the silver. And while 100 tons sounds like a lot, it was probably contained in a single cargo locker, and the rest of the cargo space would have been given over to general cargo of one sort or another making up some of the essential supplies required to keep the British nation on its feet in the early years of the Second World War.

Despite its extreme age and the fact that it broadcast its position by means of an extremely smoky boiler it reached Capetown safely, all on its own, and subsequently set sail for Britain. At this point we are all thinking, what on earth did the British government have in mind sending their hoard of silver across the oceans of the worlds in an ancient vessel, which might, even without the predations of the German submarine fleet, have had a bit of a job to make it home. After all the ship was 25 years old when it was pretty good for any steel hull to make it to its 11th birthday.

It was an armed merchantman with a small naval gun which could be used either surface to surface or surface to air and half a dozen lesser mounted machine guns for surface and anti-aircraft use. There were nine lifeboats and a number of rafts on board.

The ship sailed from Capetown on November 1st 1942 with 344 people on board. These included 136 passengers, 11 military personnel and 197 crew. Most of the crew were from the Indian subcontinent, and as was the way in those days it is certain that the engine guys came from Calcutta, the deck crew from Bombay and the catering staff from Goa. The senior ratings such as the quartermasters were British, as were the officers.

On a calm night in the south Atlantic the City of Cairo was struck by a torpedo fired by U-68. The ship started to sink and so the Captain ordered evacuation in the lifeboats, and some 20 minutes later when the Captain of the submarine judged that everyone was in the boats he put a second torpedo into the ship which then sank rapidly by the stern. He then surfaced and gave them a course for the nearest land which was St Helena about 480 miles to the North-northeast. They were also about 2000 miles from Brazil and 1000 miles from Africa.

Over the next few hours six of the nine boats rafted up, with all hands except for six people on board. Four passengers and two crew members had been killed. They were Boats No 1, No 4, No 5, No 6, No 7 and No 8. No 2 boat had capsized and No 3 boat was destroyed by the second torpedo. The passengers and crew members were fairly evenly distributed between all the boats each carrying between 50 and 60 passengers and crew, except for No 4 which only contained 17 survivors, though the numbers don’t quite seem to total up in the reports. One of the City of Cairo officers had remembered his sextant, and the Captain had a Rolex Oyster watch. With them they hoped to make a landfall on St Helena which was 480 miles away. The boats were overloaded, and initially it was necessary for the survivors to take turns at standing up, but gradually as the days passed people died and were thrown overside and this resulted in more space. There are two accounts of the voyage of No 1 boat on the “City of Cairo” website, which are extraordinary records of courage, and in some cases endurance. 

It was 6th November when the boats started out towards St Helena. After about a week No 1 was having a great deal of difficulty keeping afloat, but was the fastest boat, so the Chief Officer asked if he could go ahead. Initially the Captain was reluctant, but the following day on Wednesday 11th November he gave permission, and so No 1 pressed on. The others continued more slowly, No 7 with a steering oar in lieu of a rudder and No 8 with a cracked mast. On Friday 13th No 4 and No 8 found themselves alone, and in the end No 8 told No 4 to get going since it seemed to be more seaworthy. On Thursday 19th No 5, No 6 and No 7 were still within sight of each other, when No 6 saw a ship on the horizon. This was the Clan Alpine, also steaming alone. It picked up all those from the three boats, less 20 people who had died. The same evening the survivors in No 8 boat were rescued by the Ben line cargo ship Bendoran. Leaving No 1 and No 4 boats still at sea. 

No 1 boat continued towards its intended landfall, under increasingly distressing circumstances. Gradually the survivors lost the will to live, and died and as the weight on board reduced so the damaged areas were raised above the sea and the ingress of seawater was reduced. At one point the boat started unaccountably filling up with water, and they found that one of the delirious passengers kept removing the bung in the bottom, with the view that since he was dying everyone else should go with him. Sure enough he did die, and had to be heaved overboard into the jaws of the sharks which were following the boat. Finally there were only three people left alive Jack Edmead, the Third Steward, Angus MacDonald one of the Quartermasters, and Diana Jarman a young Englishwoman who had gained the respect of the others during the voyage. When they were on their last legs, no longer having the energy even to put up a sail, they were rescued by a German “blockade runner” Rhakotis. On the German ship Diana Jarman died, to the distress of Edmead and MacDonald and they found themselves in lifeboats again when the German ship was sunk by the British cruiser  HMS Scylla. The boat containing Edmead landed at Coruña after a few  days, and the survivors in the other boat including Angus MacDonald were rescued by a German submarine. He was to endure a depth charging by a British warship before finally being landed in Germany and spending the rest of the war as a POW.

On 27th December, after 52 days at sea No 4 boat, now containing only the Third Officer James Whyte and a passenger Margaret Gordon were rescued by a Brazilian corvette the Caravellas. Since 13th November they had covered over 2000 miles. Subsequently the Third Officer was being repatriated to the UK as a Distressed British Seaman (a DBS) on the City of Pretoria when it was torpedoed and all hands including Mr Whyte were lost. Mrs Gordon refused to go to sea again before the was over, although she travelled to New York overland and joined the WRNS. She was the only person from No 4 to survive the war.

RUNNING AGROUND

The Ocean Lily Aground

I was sent this photograph by a friend in Australia the other day, without any indication as to how this unfortunate event had occurred. But it put me in mind of a report I read many years ago about an American cargo ship which was approaching the West Indies from the south Atlantic in the dark, in the days when the Captains thought the radar was going to break down after a certain amount of use, and therefore kept them turned off.

The vessel intended to pass through the strait between the North coast of Trinidad and the southernmost point of Tobago. And if you have a look at the chart you will see that the length of the island and the gap are roughly the same size.

The Captain and the Second Mate were on the bridge and through the windows they could see a light flashing on the port bow, and one flashing on the starboard bow. The Second Mate  pointed out to the Master that the flashes corresponded with the lights on the North point and the South point of Tobago. 

The Captain told him not to be so stupid. They couldn’t possibly be that far out, and anyway, these people in the West Indies could never get their lighthouses to operate properly. No-one was injured as the ship slid up onto the beach, and came to a stop.