How embarrassing ...

[user 6228]

Still down to the first and second officers.

A load shift in the upper solent? when turning? these things dont do high g manouvers. Ship incorrectly loaded (cg too high)? Stuff of nightmares for the first, an excuse to read my 1957 copy of "merchant ship stability" for me.,

 

[pargyle]

I think RAB is spot on ... it looks very much like it is now lying part on and part off the edge of Bramble bank. I've stood on Bramble and it really is a sand bank - fairly soft sand in places - the bank is formed at the confluence of Southampton Water and the East and West Solent and the tidal streams are quite strong - particularly coming up to spring tides. I suspect that a mass of that size sitting on the edge of the bank is going to result in more sand building up around it - or scouring away from it. Either way it will need a whole fleet of dredgers to make a difference big enough to assist righting it - bearing in mind that there is very shallow water over the bank even at high tide so it's not going to be easy to get dredgers in.

I think there will be a lot of head scratching at the Salvage company headquarters this morning ... even the job of removing the cargo - if that is necessary - is going to be very difficult with the ship now lying at an angle of 52 degrees.

Watching with interest ....

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Some of it's cargo is a fleet of Bentleys according to the news this morning.
Someone will have a big bill to pay to sort this mess out .

Yes; if Bentleys in round numbers a tonne heavier than many cars. (2350kg kerb weight). Might have contributed in some way.

 

[user 6228]

Yes; if Bentleys in round numbers a tonne heavier than many cars. (2350kg kerb weight). Might have contributed in some way.

bently 2750kg
bmw 3 series 1525kg
Land rover discover 2558 kg
nissan micra 850Kg
mini original 650kg
mini - modern 1250kg
fiat 500 original 500kg
fiat 500 moden 850kg

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

What's lacking here is a good conspiracy theory, so here goes.

It's absolutely obvious what happened, and you can't blame the crew, but you can blame Crewe. Germany is repatriating its gold in response to gathering world turmoil, and the imminent collapse of the euro. (The repatriation is a fact, all kidding aside). So these are obviously gold Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, Goldfinger-style, made under conditions of vast secrecy in Crewe so as to get the gold they have in the Bank of England back to Germany un-noticed. They weigh 5,375 kg each, obviously unknown to the crew, and the result is there for all to see. The whole deal was put together when it looked as though the Swiss were going to vote to repatriate their gold, in the runup to the vote a month ago.

Because who owns Bentley and Rolls-Royce. VW!! QED.

 

[madasafish]

bently 2750kg
bmw 3 series 1525kg
Land rover discover 2558 kg
nissan micra 850Kg
mini original 650kg
mini - modern 1250kg
fiat 500 original 500kg
fiat 500 moden 850kg

Lots of JCBs on board from here: http://tinyurl.com/pgchoog .. makes a Bentley look like a tin can...

Edit

Ballast issues? Read thread.. http://tinyurl.com/nll2req

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Ballast issues? Read thread.. http://tinyurl.com/nll2req

The Soton-Bremerhaven leg would be the "ballast leg", indeed. Slosh. Nasty. But possibly easy to fix unless a storm blows up.

<ADD>Interesting update article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-30677320 . Ballast pumping appears not to be an option. And apparently a storm IS due. It's very choppy there in a blow on a 37-footer but no waves to trouble her I would have thought. OTOH strong winds broadside on are not helpful.</ADD>

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

bearing in mind that there is very shallow water over the bank even at high tide so it's not going to be easy to get dredgers in.

There's a few around that could cope, don't know where they are these days but they do spend a lot of time around the Thames and East coast nowadays - the last two LLanelli registered ships - sospan I and II desigend to 'dry out' and still work, originally built to work the Helwich shoals for its high quality sand then work East coast sea defences in the off season Dutch designed they're flat bottomed with extremely powerful pumps that can fire sand out onto the beach (they used to shift sand down a pipeline about a mile long in the Burry estuary)
As for Bentleys weighing more - this should have been taken into account during the loading arrangement.
Getting any cargo off will be a problem - being a RO/RO there will be no handling gear on board so lifting gear will have to be brought to the site. coming off springs as well now so that will be an issue - they may even have to wait for HAT's before managing a refloat.

 

[Little John]

All-in-all an act of good seamanship. The alternative would have been to risk turning turtle (with possible loss of life) in a shipping lane which would have seriously affected the flow of Southampton traffic for weeks. Now - that would have been expensive.
LJ

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

All-in-all an act of good seamanship. The alternative would have been to risk turning turtle (with possible loss of life) in a shipping lane which would have seriously affected the flow of Southampton traffic for weeks. Now - that would have been expensive.
LJ

But I reckom months not weeks

 

[Little John]

But I reckom months not weeks

Could be - it's a very similar situation to the Herald of Free Enterprise, which was also put onto a sandbank at the very last moment. That took around 7 weeks to re-float - albeit in much deeper water - in March/ April if memory serves.
At least Southampton Water is sheltered - that should treat the hull as kindly as possible at this time of the year, although they ain't exactly designed to take the ground like that ...
LJ

 

[pargyle]

Welll they got lucky ....she floated herself off and was off across the Solent before the Tugmasters realised she was free and took her in hand ...

Now blocking the skyline off Lee on Solent ... and still listing at a crazy angle ....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-30716023

But ... did you see this Bad boy coming to the UK for the first time ? Imagine what it would be like if this one fell over ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30720824

Try it full screen if you can - awesome !!!!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Passed its predecessor a few years ago coming out of Felixsowe - we sailed close for a peek - its TEMPSC was almosat bigger than our cutter!
As for the Solent one - i believe they'd sealed a crack in her side and pumped some water out beforehand (sounds like a lot of the vehicles got water damaged though. SO all in all good move by the pilot in grounding her.