The sinking of the mikhail lermontov

[Captain Kong]

In the yard of a Pub in Picton, New Zealand that I went into last month, is the life boat of the Mikhail Lermontov, a Russian Cruise ship that ran aground and sank in Queen Charlotte Sound,.
My old mate from Liverpool, Joe Finnegan , ex AB. was on it with his wife Mary, He was the entertainer on board, and had been on her as a singer and comedian for four years, now living near Perth OZ,
Here is the story from google.......................

Background[

On 16 February 1986 Mikhail Lermontov was cruising in New Zealand for the CTC cruise company. On that day it left Picton for the Marlborough Sounds, carrying mostly elderly Australian passengers. The Picton pilot, Captain Don Jamison (who was also Picton harbourmaster), piloted the ship out of Picton. His presence, and his knowledge of the area, should have assured the safety of MS Mikhail Lermontov.

Hugging the shoreline to give the Australian passengers a good view of the area, Jamison continued towards the cape. About one mile from the cape, Jamison made the decision to take MS Mikhail Lermontov through the passage. A Russian officer questioned the decision, but the harbour-master assured him it would be a safe course, and at the time the decision was made the ship was still within the harbour limits.

Disaster[edit]

On February 6, 1986, the Mikhail Lermontov sailed from Sydney on the beginning of a two-week cruise around New Zealand, carrying 372 passengers and a crew of 348, which combined to a total of 743 people. On the evening of February 16, the Lermontov was sailing past Cape Jackson, on the northeastern shore of New Zealand's south island, about 30 miles northwest of Wellington. At 5:37 PM, travelling at 15 knots, Mikhail Lermontov struck rocks about 5.5 metres (18 feet) below the waterline on its port side.

By 8:30 pm, passengers began to abandon ship, with the aid of the Russian crew and local rescue vessels. The passengers were transferred to several ships in the area, including the LPG tanker Tarihiko (Capt. Reedman) and the SeaRail road-rail ferry Arahura (Capt John Brew). As darkness set in MS Mikhail Lermontov listed further to starboard. Within 20 minutes of the last passenger being rescued, the ship had disappeared completely, sinking at approximately 10:27 PM, 4 hours and 50 minutes after running aground. The sinking resulted in only one casualty, 33-year-old crew engineer Pavel Zagladimov, who tragically went down with the ship. The coroner's report lists his official cause of death as 'unknown', as his remains were never found. 11 of those rescued had minor injuries.[5]

Wreck[edit]





NIWA sonar image of the Mikhail Lermontov resting on the seafloor.
MS Mikhail Lermontov rests where it sank, lying on its starboard side in depths reaching up to a maximum of about 38 m. It is popular with Scuba divers and the site is served by local dive shops in Picton and Kaikoura.[6] It is also one of the biggest, easily accessible, diveable ship wrecks in the world.[7] The dives range from an easy 12m depth at the top of the wreck, through to deep penetration and decompression dives to depths of 36m. It is possible to enter the wreck, especially in the open public areas accessible from the port side windows near the top of the wreck, although care must be taken and guides familiar with the wreck are highly recommended, especially for enclosed overhead environments and where entanglement hazards may exist. Closed circuit diving is recommended to avoid causing reduced visibility when entering enclosed areas such as restaurants, crew messes, and shopping arcades. Three divers are known to have died while exploring the ship, including one diver whose body is still possibly trapped inside.[8]

Cause as established by New Zealand inquiry[edit]

The New Zealand preliminary inquiry report found that; “at the time of the grounding the ship's courses and speeds were being directed by Captain D.I. Jamison in the employ of the Marlborough Harbour Board as Harbourmaster and chief pilot."[9]

“The decision to direct the ship through the channel was made by Captain Jamison without consulting any other person at the time the ship was in position Lat 41˚ 01' 04" S Long 174 19' 30" E.[10]

“When Captain Jamison observed the passage between Cape Jackson and the Cape Jackson light house, to open up, he made a sudden decision to navigate the ship through that passage".[11]

The 1986 New Zealand Minister of Transport Richard Prebble later stated of the captain's actions, "why he decided to guide the ship over a passage that he actually knew was too shallow, I don't think he'll ever be able to answer

[Chris Allman]

I bet the Pilot, Captain Don Jamison, was popular with the Russians, especially the Captain. Would not like to have that on my CV. I wonder what happened to him.

[Captain Kong]

There is plenty on Google all about it.
Captain Jamison claimed to have been suffering from Stress as he had been working 80 hours a week,
Cheers
Brian
I just thought it unusual to see a ships life boat in the yard of a pub.

[Chris Allman]

I just thought it unusual to see a ships life boat in the yard of a pub.

Me and my mates had our boat in the pubs yard all the time on the Norfolk Broads thats how we navigated the Broads by the pubs

[Rodney Mills]

Thanks for the thread Captain, very interesting to me and my wife.

We have Master Scuba Diver certification and specialty Wreck Diving certification. We have dived on the wreck of the "Rainbow Warrior" in New Zealand, and dived others in Oz and the U.S.. One of my sons lived in N.Z. for eight years (illegally) and dived with us there and he never heard about this wreck. Too bad, we would have loved to dive it. Thanks again, a very interesting thread.

[j.sabourn]

#3.. Don't know how he would cope today Brian. 84 hours a week is the standard offshore working week and that's without call outs. Cheers JS