El Faro Has Likely Sunk

[Ben]

First off, prayers that there may yet be some survivors.

On the "how did it happen?" front though, I'm perplexed that there were apparently zero signals of any kind from ship or crew after initial radio comms. No ship's EPIRB, personal EPIRP, PLB, Life raft EPIRB, sat phone (I know, unreliable), nothing. One would think at least one of the automated / water activated devices would have gone off, or that at least one of the crew could have activated their personal EPIRB*. Morbid, but they should have at least been able to get a signal from a floating body. That doesn't seem to be the case, unless the news is leaving details out.

It's strange to me to think that in the 21st century, a large, modern ship could basically disappear like it was 1850. I totally get the difficulty of finding them in that storm, but in current conditions, something should be beeping somewhere.

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2015/10/04/us-coast-guard-searching-for-33-people-missing-in-hurricane-joaquin/?intcmp=hpbt3

* I'm working on the assumption that cargo fleet ships have at least comparable emergency requirements to every govt ship I've ever been on, where all the above emergency locator devices were available.

[dogmush]

So let me be the first to say your assumption is wrong.

Let's assume that this vessel did in fact have the required Global Maritime Distress Safety System equipment and it was all operational.  The transmitting stuff is: An EPIRB, Inmarsat C, HF/VHF Radios with Digital Selective Calling, Search and Rescue Transponders (1/life boat), and Survival Craft Transceivers (small handheld VHF). The inmarsat and all the radio's require enough time after you decide it's all gone to hell, before it actually goes to hell to call for help.  VHF is Line-Of-Sight, so 15-20ish NM depending on antenna heights.  MF is several hundred miles, up to a couple thousand,but it's touch, requires someone to be monitoring,and is sensitive to atmospherics (clouds and lightning). INMARSAT is pretty good.  You just have to push and hold a button for 2-5 sec, and a signal is sent up to the sats.  They'll rebroadcast it to everyone. (You get more INMARSAT false alarms than anything else.) But you do have to push that button while the antenna is above water. The EBIRB is supposed to auto release and go off, but it's usually on the top of the boat, near the liferafts. (we'll come back to that).

So that's what they probably had.  Don't know what .gov ships you've been on, but in the Army, and the Navy ships I've sailed with,we don't have personal EBIRB's. We have at most MOBI's (which are a short (2-5nm) range radio beacon designed for your ship to get you if you fall off.  Never seen a ship that bothered with the upkeep of full on 406MHz EPIRBS for everyone.

As far as the auto release (s) they are designed and installed with the ship upright.  It's pretty common actually if the ship rolls or breaks up on the way down for the released whatever (raft, EPIRB, SART) to get caught on some part of the ship that didn't used to be above it, and go down with the ship.  That's why Plan A in any abandon ship drill is to go get your stuff and physically take it with you.

As a professional mariner, and certified GMDSS operator, let me misquote Douglas Adams:

The Sea is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to the Sea.

It's actually pretty easy to just disappear, even with modern commo. I hope they got off*, and will be rescued.  But man, the sea is an unforgiving place. Even well trained, well equipped, cautious mariners sometimes just draw the short straw.

*I can think of very few things less likely to end well than abandoning ship in a Cat IV hurricane.  And as I implied, if they had time to abandon the ship, someone would have grabbed the EPIRB. 

[Ben]

Looks like updates indicate at least one body in a survival suit was recovered,  so some signaling devices must have been activated.

Also,  dogmush posted a lot of expert stuff  while I was writing. 

NOAA had personal EPIRBS, at least for the work i did. Much smaller than big .mil ships, but I figured 20-30 (crew on this ship) would have been doable.  Guess not.

[dogmush]

Kinda depends on what they find.

Right now, I'm kind thinking she rolled.  A couple of people that were near the doors might get a PFD or Survival suit and get out, but no one's got time to go get electronics.  And if she rolled, all that good stuff is now under the boat.  On a ship that size, that's like 60ish feet down.  Not going to swim down and get it.

I'd be surprised if a ship that big broke up fast enough to stop someone from getting a message off, or an EPIRB out, but it's possible.  Capsize though and it can still take 45 min to sink, there's just nothing anyone can do.

[dogmush]

http://www.actuarialeye.com/2014/03/30/how-many-ships-disappear-each-year/

While not "frequent" Large ships just going missing happens more then most probably think.

[Ben]

What kind of life rafts do those ships have? I've never seen them anywhere else, but when I worked in the oil patch, the offshore rigs has big orange lifeboats that looked like submarines. Get in (if there's time), close the hatch, and bounce around until rescued.

Do you think the load had something to do with potential capsizing? The news calls it a cargo ship, but maybe it was a container ship (they reported seeing containers)?

[dogmush]

What kind of life rafts do those ships have? I've never seen them anywhere else, but when I worked in the oil patch, the offshore rigs has big orange lifeboats that looked like submarines. Get in (if there's time), close the hatch, and bounce around until rescued.

Do you think the load had something to do with potential capsizing? The news calls it a cargo ship, but maybe it was a container ship (they reported seeing containers)?

If you Google Image search her, you see a container carrier.  I can see at least 2 decks of containers below her weather deck and as much as 5 above.  I'd assume that they had her ballasted pretty deep in the water going into that storm, but if someone messed up the load plan, or she was just heavy, yeah that could do it.  Also, if a good number of boxes let go on one side and went overboard then the other side would be heavy. Lots of stuff can happen.  The calculations between your center of gravity and your center of buoyancy can get pretty complex when you take movement in to account.

The same images show two hard, but open boats in swing out davits and at least two inflatable rafts.  The inflatables should be on hydrostatic releases but there's a lot of crap in their way. The open boats would probably beat the mothership to the bottom in the kind of weather that would sink her.

 

[Jamisjockey]

The real question is how fast she went down.  If she was swamped and capsized, they may have only had minutes.

[wmenorr67]

Heard one of the wife's of a crew member this morning say something to the effect that it was unacceptable for them to attempt to go into the storm.  She was wondering as a lot of others are why didn't they stir around or delay sailing to stay away from the storm?

[vaskidmark]

Ship reported it was at 15* list when it made it's last contact.  5 levels of cargo above decks and some containers + autos and other stuff in the holds.

I have no idea of the weight ratios above vs below waterline but the absence of floating containers makes my spidey sense think the load stayed together.  Which does not make a lot of sense - I thought containers were mostly held in place by their weight as opposed to strapped/wrapped/chained together.

USCG just reported 3 cutters, 3 civilian ocean tugs, 3 C-130s from USCG and 3 C-130s from USAF + some sort of Navy PB in the search.  Life boats (2 only) were the type that needed to be lowered as opposed to sliding down a ramp - neither one sighted.  2 42-man inflatable life rafts - 1 sighted in essentially uninflated status - the other unsighted.

Bottom line - 33 down with 1 body recovered.  Very sad.

stay safe.

[vaskidmark]

Heard one of the wife's of a crew member this morning say something to the effect that it was unacceptable for them to attempt to go into the storm.  She was wondering as a lot of others are why didn't they stir around or delay sailing to stay away from the storm?

Several Master Mariner talking heads today remarked that it was a tropical storm when they left port and the forecast was for it to move northward rather than intensify and hang around.

Cargo that is not moving is extremely expensive.  The constraints to keep it moving are very heavy.  (Not saying I necessarily agree with the fact.)

stay safe.

[Jamisjockey]

USCG is saying now that it has sunk.
http://news.yahoo.com/search-off-bahamas-lost-ship-turns-debris-no-123130471.html

A heavily damaged lifeboat from the El Faro was discovered, no one aboard, Fedor said. The ship had two lifeboats capable of holding 43 people each.

"We are still looking for survivors or any sign of life," he said.

Also spotted were an oil sheen, cargo containers, a partly submerged life raft — the ship carried five rafts, each capable of holding 17 people — life jackets and life rings, authorities said.

[vaskidmark]

Much speculation if the debris they are seeing is from El Faro or either of 2 other ships who reported loss of cargo in that area.

stay safe.

[dogmush]

I have no idea of the weight ratios above vs below waterline but the absence of floating containers makes my spidey sense think the load stayed together.  Which does not make a lot of sense - I thought containers were mostly held in place by their weight as opposed to strapped/wrapped/chained together.

Nope that stuff is all strapped down. There's actually a specialized tied own for intermodal containers called a "pineapple". It fits into sockets on each corner to lock them into stacks. The stacks are then strapped together with "bridges" to make the whole thing static. Connexes are the least likely kind of cargo to shift. Shifting cargo in high seas is major bad juju.

When doing stability calculations you even have to take into account fuel and ballast shifting in the tanks. You can Google "free surface effect" to learn about those fun calculations.

[RoadKingLarry]

Well, it was in the Bermuda Triangle after all...

[Hawkmoon]

Let's not forget that the ship had lost power. With no power, there's no way to keep the bow at an appropriate angle to the wave direction. I think I recall reports that the seas were in the 30- to 40-foot range. That's the height from the mean water level to the top, so in reality the waves were 60 to 80 feet top-to-bottom. If a ship with so much weight above decks gets sideways to the waves in a storm like that, it would be a miracle if it DIDN'T capsize.

[dogmush]

I hadn't heard that they lost power.

Yeah, going broadside to the swells in a hurricane is a recipe for going down for pretty much anything.

Perspective:

I have ridden out 3 hurricanes on (small) ships. In 2003 I clocked a landing craft on RADAR doing 6 knots backward with the engines all ahead and three anchors out in Hurricane Isabelle. During Hurricane Ophilia a couple years later I saw docks, buildings and a car float and get underway.

And none of that prepared me for screwing up and getting caught in a [small] hurricane offshore. I put an entire 174ft landing craft on one up slope of a wave. And then buried 35 ft of the bow in the next trough. Full throttle up, fight the wheel to keep the bow into the seas. Then bare steerage on the way down so you doen't drive her under. Then catch the heading when the bow comes up and keep her from falling off the wave and rollung. For 10 hours. Words can truly not describe what a Hurricane offshore is like. One, very small, mistake and your life is quite literally forfeit to luck and physics.

I am not the least surprised that  a Cat IV could take out any ship unlucky enough to get caught in it.

[vaskidmark]

Landing craft?  As in LST?

Rode a hurricane in one of those as bouncable cargo.  Up, down, up, slap the flat bottom and wonder why the keel did not break.  And it was "merely" at Cat 1.

And people wonder why I have no interest in taking a cruise.

stay safe.

[dogmush]

LCU-2000

[Jamisjockey]

I bet that was sporty.

Here's some youtubin of a ship in a storm

https://youtu.be/Aow2ErSP3dQ

[grampster]

no, nope, nah, nahda, no......

[Ben]

Total tangent related to power loss:

In 2008, CA enacted "clean fuel" requirements for all large vessels within 24NM of the CA coast (to include offshore island baselines, so even farther from the mainland in some areas). Because of the high fuel costs of the low sulfur fuel, most international ships carried both the high and low sulfur fuels. When they got near CA, they switched fuels. The engines on many of the older ships had problems with this and often didn't restart right away.

I was flying a lot back then, and we would see a ship dead in the water in the lanes approaching LA harbor on nearly every flight. Sometimes they'd get power back in under an hour, sometimes it would be hours. It would suck to lose power in severe conditions because of a pollution reg. Though one would hope a captain would put safety above policy (whether gov policy to follow regulations or corporate policy to save money) and not switch fuels in dangerous conditions.

[Hawkmoon]

http://www.newser.com/story/213992/mechanical-failure-doomed-cargo-ship.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_home

[dogmush]

I bet that was sporty.

Here's some youtubin of a ship in a storm

https://youtu.be/Aow2ErSP3dQ

It was sporty because we survived with no real damage or injury. At the time I wasn't sure that was a given.

LCU youtubein

That boat is in 5 - 8 ft seas. I've done 20's. Don't recommend  it at all. We were dipping the end of the ramp, and taking blue water over both forecastles. See those large metal boxes on the rear inboard corner of the forecastles? They are welded down. We broke the starboard one loose. Luckily it happened early enough in the trip I got to go out on deck and lash it to the rail. Fun times, we were only taking like 20* rolls for that part. We got to 30*rolls before the idiot skipper gave up on our course and just ran before the storm. Then the seas got really bad.

If you survive (I did) you always learn so much from other's bad decisions.

[roo_ster]

No thank you to any offers to ride out a storm in ANY size ship, thanks.

Some folk just do not understand the sheer power and scale nature can bring to bear.