180 tons of water inside detained ship

Ship surveyors from the Maritime & Coastguard Agency have detained the Antigua & Barbuda flagged ‘Hanseatic Spirit' at Portland.

The 2,650 GT general cargo vessel was detained by the Agency after she called into Portland on her way from Poole to Castillon in Spain because the crew noticed that the foc's'le store, which included the emergency generator and the emergency fire pump, was flooded with over 180 tons of water.

Inspectors noticed that the water was higher in the store than the surrounding sea level which suggested that the water had gained ingress through an opening rather than through a hole in the hull.

Further inspections led them to find that the hatch covers were not watertight and parts of the cargo were wet.

The port lifebuoy on the foc's'le was missing and the two bridge wing lifebuoys were tied to the structure of the vessel which would have prevented them from being released quickly in the event of an incident.

The paperwork on board the vessel also showed that records of hours of rest for November were not kept and when eventually presented were false.

Area Operations Manager Richard Pellew said

“This vessel was in a very poor way when we saw her yesterday in Portland. We identified a major non-conformity in that the vessel had sailed from Poole with her Master and company knowing that she was not fully prepared for sea because her watertight hatch covers were not secure. The vessels paperwork was also not in order and the crew were unable to provide evidence of satisfactory verification of the operating company's ISM Document of Compliance.

"Fatigue is a key issue for the MCA and the understanding of the Master and crew of the importance of keeping within, and recording correctly, the hours of rest was clearly lacking on this vessel. We have kept the ship owners and her classification society, Bureau Veritas, informed throughout."

Posted Friday November 27^th 2009
By Maritime And Coastguard Agency