A Singapore-bound merchant vessel from Jeddah split into two around 840 nautical miles off the coast here today causing oil spill even as all the crew members were rescued, Coast Guard officials said.
'Mol Comfort', the 316-m-long vessel was carrying 4,500 containers from Saudi Arabia, they said.
The cause behind the incident was yet to be ascertained. It was also not known what the ship was transporting.
On 17 June 2013, while underway from Singapore to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
the vessel suffered a crack amidships in bad weather about 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) off the coast of Yemen and eventually broke into two. The crew of 26—11 Russians, one Ukrainian and 14 Filipinos—abandoned the ship and was rescued from two life rafts and a lifeboat
While some containers may have been lost, as of 23 June 2013 both sections of the vessel remain afloat with the majority of the cargo still onboard. A salvage company has been contracted and tugboats are en route to tow the two sections, which are drifting in East-Northeast direction
Speculation points to catastrophic hull failure. The naval architecture term applied here is 'hogging' which occurs when the crest of the wave moves to the center of the ship and the trough of the waves are at bow and stern. Had heavier containers been loaded on the bow and stern and lighter ones in the center of the ship, the vessel may have been placed in a hogging situation before she even set sail. However, modern containerships are designed to withstand such stresses.
There has been no mention whatsoever from any maritime source of the cargo manifest.