Boats that go bump in the night

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8/24/99 -- 6:12 AM Cruise liner collides with cargo ship off England's coast

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MARGATE, England (AP) - A Norwegian Cruise liner collided with a cargo ship on its way back from a 13-day tour of the Scandinavian capitals. At least 20 passengers suffered minor injuries. The cruise ship bound for Dover pulled into the port on schedule, Norwegian Cruise Line President Geir Aune said. The 1,726 passengers, most Americans, had breakfast on board before disembarking to return home.

``When I heard the bang, I really pictured another Titanic and started running to the deck,'' said passenger Arielle Adelman, 16, from New York City. ``It was really scary. There was a loud bang. I was walking down the hall and fell over. The ship started shaking and things started falling.''

The crash smashed the ship's bow, but the boat made the 40-mile trip to Dover on its own and arrived safely. The injured passengers remained on board until the ship docked.

``A few people went to the doctor's office to check for minor scratches, but it was nothing serious,'' Aune said.

Rescue efforts were focused on the Panama-registered cargo ship Ever Decent, which was adrift outside shipping lanes 12 miles off the coast of Margate in southeast England. Its 40 crew members battled a fire that broke out as a result of the crash.

Pollution experts were on alert. Some of the cargo containers held hazardous material, but the pollution risk was considered minimal, coast guard spokeswoman Joanne Groenenberg said.

The crash happened at 1:15 a.m. in a part of the English Channel known as Falls Bank, 20 miles from Margate, the coast guard said.

It was unclear why the two ships collided. Weather conditions at the time of the crash were not hazardous, the coast guard said.

The force of the collision threw three shipping containers from the deck of the Ever Decent onto the 41,000-ton cruiser. Other containers fell into the water, while several more caught fire, said coast guard spokesman Mark Clark.

The cargo ship started to take on water and began leaning to one side, but later recovered and regained an upright position. It then headed toward shallow water to run aground, apparently to make it easier for a rescue and to fight the blaze.

Cruise ship passenger Bob Gedan, 62, from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who was traveling with his wife Winnie, 61, said there were some anxious moments among passengers but never any panic.

``Most people were asleep at the time. The TV fell off onto our bed and woke my wife up,'' he said.

-- CygnusXI (noburnt@toast.net), August 24, 1999

Answers

I just heard about this on the radio. Maybe FactFinder could explain it.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), August 24, 1999.

UK Cruise Passengers Tell Of 'Earthquake'

Updated 7:25 AM ET August 24, 1999By John O'Callaghan

http://news.excite.com/news/r/990824/07/news-crash-ships

DOVER, England (Reuters) - Passengers told of surviving an "earthquake" Tuesday when their cruise liner and a cargo ship collided in the dead of night in the English Channel.

"I'm from Los Angeles and I can only compare it to a 7.5 Richter scale earthquake. It was that violent," said Edna Mae Glikmann.

Only three holiday-makers on the Bahamas-registered Norwegian Dream were injured in the collision which left the container ship adrift and ablaze in the Channel, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The Norwegian Dream, carrying about 2,400 mainly British and American passengers, limped into the English port of Dover about six hours after the impact that spilled four large containers onto to the liner's deck.

The passengers were just seven hours away from ending a 12-day European cruise when the ships collided at 1.15 a.m. (0015 GMT) about 32 km (20 miles) northwest of the English coastal town of Margate. "We really thought we were going to capsize because it keeled over horribly to the side," Glikmann said.

Passengers said television sets and other articles were flung across their cabins by the collision.

"We were on our way to bed and we just felt this really sharp turn. We were sent up to get our life jackets," said Katie Trella from the U.S. state of New Jersey.

"It was as clear as can be. I don't understand how it can possibly have happened," Glikmann said.

Helicopters, tugs, lifeboats, five merchant ships and the German frigate Augsburg stood by to assist the 17 crew still battling the fire on the Panama-registered Ever Decent.

"A noxious cloud of smoke is coming from the vessel and all ships are being warned to keep clear of the area." a spokesman for Dover coastguards said.

"The container ship is now upright after listing at about 40 degrees, but it is seriously damaged," said the spokesman.

The Norwegian Dream's bridge was badly damaged and its bow caved in near the waterline.

The spokesman said there were few details on how the collision occurred but the fire broke out after the collision.

"The winds were light...and visibility good," he said, adding that the contents of the containers had not yet been established.

Lloyds shipping service said the 52,090 gross ton Ever Decent was built in 1997 and was owned by the Evergreen Marine Corp in Taipei.

The 50,764 gross ton Norwegian Dream was built in 1992 and is owned by Norwegian Cruise Line, based in Hamilton, Bermuda.

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Just saw a TV news report on this via CNN. TPTB want to know how an incident like this could possible occur in a time with all with all our "modern navigation tools".

hummmmm...

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), August 24, 1999.


GPS problems are rumored to take 8 to 12 days to materialize. Stay alert! Lets hope the rumor was wrong.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), August 24, 1999.

I'll be as interested as anyone to find out what happened, but don't think we should jump to any conclusions about GPS or other computer-related malfunction. What's the betting that someone's feeling a bit sheepish after sneaking off for a smoke when he should have been on watch? I guess ships bump into one another or run aground pretty much all the time somewhere in the world, and the English Channel has some of the busiest shipping lanes anywhere (all that traffic going to & from Rotterdam). From what I've read in the newspaper, the container ship was crossing the lanes (going from England to Belgium) while the cruise ship was in the southbound lane. Traffic crossing the lanes must pose some collision risk, which must lead us to expect scrapes occaisionally.

-- Rob (foo@bar.com), August 26, 1999.

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