Aground

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
Just as well you didn't join them this may have been you.
Des

cairn 4.JPG

[j.sabourn]

Saw a worse one than that Des think it was 1948 . The Zephros a Greek o. Missed the Tyne piers and finished up a mile away on the rocks at Cullercoats . His excuse was he took a Belisha beacon ashore for the South Pier light . Up until a couple of years back the keel plates were still on the rocks , I went to the school overlooking the site so was our playground until we went to the senior school . Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Talking of light houses there is a very interesting program on SBS about Irish light houses.
There are over 50 of them.

Fastnet, one of the more well known from weather broadcasts was built in 1854 and in 1988 became an unmanned one

Looking at some of them and seeing how they were built is amazing.

Look around today and see how long it takes just to build a house then see what was done in those conditions way back in the 1800's.

Looking at the sea when in all its majesty crashing onto the rocks makes me wonder about the wisdom of off shore wind turbines!!!!

[Doc Vernon]

Talking about aground , what about the Princess Cruise Ship the other day that hit a bit of bad Seas in New Zealand . As i have said these large Floating Hotels are not built for any rough Seas!
Look at the Pandamonium that was caused by the large Waves making her Rock and Roll.
I guess with a wee bit more rougher Weather these Monsters would probably keel over!
Thankfully no one Killed
Cheers

Crown Princess cruise ship: Sixteen people injured as cruise ship hits rough waters in New Zealand after departing from Sydney

Strong winds cause Crown Princess to list in Milford Sound NZ | Cruise News | CruiseMapper

[Julian Norman]

A ship aground in the Humber after 3 attempts to reflect her has now to wait until April for suitable tidal conditions to refloat her. Not much fun for the crew having to stay aboard.

[Tony Taylor]

A ship aground in the Humber after 3 attempts to reflect her has now to wait until April for suitable tidal conditions to refloat her. Not much fun for the crew having to stay aboard.

Described in one paper as huge cargo ship; looked about 1500tons tops.

[j.sabourn]

Well would have looked huge to the reporter sitting in his kayak Tony ! JS

[happy daze john in oz]

It has been a very rough time this year in the waters around NZ.

The Crown Princess not the first ship to experience bad weather in the Milford sound region.

Back in 2010 a P&O cruise got into far worse trouble then the Crown did, over 200 injured

WE could not get into Wellington this year, port closed for 5 days as not safe for pilot boat to come out.

Heard the inter island ferry between north and south island also off for almost a week the waters were so rough.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Wouldn't like to be at sea off Queensland right now massive Tropical storm coming ashore stretching right down into NSW, A bit like those that hit Florida, expecting a metre of rain.
Des

[John Arton]

I was cadet on one of C.P,s forest products ships. Leaving Jacksonville fully laden with phosphate bound for new Westminster (British columbia), we were proceeding down river and had just passed a dredger that had it's long spoil discharge pipe leading down river. After clearing the dredger and it's spoil pipe we started at a to enter a bend in the river. Captain and pilot were nattering to each other and I was at the telegraph operating it to pilots order and monitoring the helmsman. Watching the shoreline I realised that we were slowing down despite the telegraph being on full ahead. I tried to get the captain's and pilots attention but they were more interested in their conversation. I then managed to interrupt them by saying I thought we were aground, big consternation, full astern double ring, no chance, we were well aground. Pilot called for the senior pilot to come down saying he knows the river like the back of his hand. He turns up, obviously having been dragged away from a liquid lunch. He was, to be polite, a bit of a fat guy, arriving on the bridge he appeared to have a bit of a bad turn and could only slump onto a chair speechless and then departed, leaving us all speechless. The coastguard then turned up and their soundings revealed that we were aground on a bank that had built up due to the dredgers soil outflow being misdirected into the river downstream rather than to the shore and we were aground on it from the bow up to our no2 hold. It was decided that we would wait until the next high tide before attempting to refloat with the assistance of every available harbour tug. All this despite being given an official letter from the harbor master assuring us that there was a minimum of 3 feet underkeel clearance throughout.
As high tide approached we had 5 tubs standing by ready to push us off whilst the coastguard were monitoring the river heights. When the hide tide arrived they gave us the nob and the pilot ordered all the tugs to PUSh FULL. So with our engine going full eastern all the tugs engines roared into life but unfortunately one of them had flames bursting out of its funnel and it's crew came out of the engine room and the tugs engine stopped and it drifted away. Naturally we were all taken aback by this spectacle and it was only when we realised that we were off the bank and rapidly bearing down on the dredger that was the cause of us going aground that panic ensuid and from emergency full astern went to double ring full ahead and with the remaining tugs assistance disaster was avoided. The harbour would not allow us to berth to have an underwater inspection so we were escorted out to the anchorage where class and the coastguard agreed to us to allowed to sail as soundings of all tanks showed no hull breach. After discharge in New Westminster we went to drydock in esquilmat for bottom inspection and repainting, the only damage being some bottom plating being slightly indented.
Rgds
J.A