Picture(s) of the day....

[myglaren]

[NewcastleFalcon]

Ever wondered how the worlds automobile industry does the import/export thing. Well the Scandinavians have had a long tradition in sea-faring. This Norwegian Company's ships are regular visitors to the Tyne where according to the programme at the time Nissan Sunderland exported 4 out of every 5 cars they built.

Little piece on "Coast" this morning

screenshot

REgards Neil

[myglaren]

It always seemed odd to me that Nissan export through Newcastle when they are so close to Sunderland.
I know that Sunderland is moribund now but there was still a fair amount of activity and infrastructure there when Nissan was planted here.

[NewcastleFalcon]

It always seemed odd to me that Nissan export through Newcastle when they are so close to Sunderland.
I know that Sunderland is moribund now but there was still a fair amount of activity and infrastructure there when Nissan was planted here.

Thats Port of Tyne Steve South Side of the river, and probably closer to the factory than Port of Sunderland, but I guess it was capacity for the larger ships that was the deciding factor.

At the Port of Tyne facility on the other side of the river ships come in from Germany with a "belly full of cars" (Song for Sharon lyric-Joni Mitchell) from the Volkswagen group. More than 85% of its UK imports come from Emden, Germany.

REgards Neil

[bobins]

Wonder what the final bill for the vehicle transporter boat that fell over in the Solent a few years ago was ?

[NewcastleFalcon]

It was one of the "Hoegh" fleet. The coast programme showed them parking up the cars in the ship to get the maximum number in. Quite a manual effort, and parked within an inch or two of each other.



Regards Neil

[bobins]

IIRC, another one fell over off the Dutch coast. There wasn't enough water to refloat it so they cut it - and its cargo - into bite-sized chunks with abrasive wire ropes and removed it bit by bit to dry land. They then had to do a forensic level clean-up of the sea bed to remove any remaining traces of boat and cargo.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Havent tracked down the dutch incident , but the Daily Mail really went to town with pictures of the Solent incident. It was speculated that it was deliberately grounded to prevent a capsize. Cargo included bentleys and rolls royce's bound for germany. Maybe they parked too many Bentley Bentayga's on one side of the ship causing the initial list!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... dbank.html

pic here

I'm no ship designer but that looks remarkably like a floating (or not) brick, and a stubby too short one at that!

Regards Neil

[Hell Razor5543]

The Bentayga was not available to buy at the time.

I do remember reading (or hearing) about another car transporter that was involved in an incident, and (although almost none of them were damaged) ALL of the vehicles were written off and crushed. This was to prevent any possible future lawsuits from happening (can you imagine how gleeful a litigation lawyer would be if there were a serious accident that DID involve a vehicle from that incident?).

Those transporters, when fully laden, do ride a lot lower in the water, which means they are normally very stable.

[bobins]

I'd be less worried about the potential lawsuits and more worried about the ever present smell of seaweed

"The new and exclusive feature on our Bentley - when you put your ear up to the exhaust pipe, you can hear the sound of the sea"

[NewcastleFalcon]

This is a dud glow plug. Its been in place for 200,000 miles and I have just got back on the glow plug removal horse, after a traumatic incident summarised in this thread....Glow Plugs Annihilate 2.0HDi Xsara Picasso

Whats more exciting than a picture of a glow plug
This little bit of creativity

Spoiler: show

very topical!

Regards Neil

[bobins]

I was a few miles out - off of the French coast, not the Dutch coast. Nautical navigation never was my strong point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Tricolor


http://www.cargolaw.com/2003nightmare_tricolor.html


Actually a very interesting half hour film.

[bobins]

It was one of the "Hoegh" fleet. The coast programme showed them parking up the cars in the ship to get the maximum number in. Quite a manual effort, and parked within an inch or two of each other.



Regards Neil

From Wikipedia:

Investigation

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch opened an investigation into the accident. Its report into the incident was published on 17 March 2016.

The investigation found that plans for the loading of the cargo had not been changed despite the change in itinerary. No calculation of the vessel's stability had been made, a practice found to be common across many operators' fleets. The weight of cargo on board had been underestimated, being 265 tonnes greater than estimated. The investigation found that although the cargo had shifted as a result of the ship listing, it was not the cause of the list. The ship's ballast water system was not fully serviceable, all but one of the gauges for each ballast tank were unserviceable, a situation that had existed since at least July 2014. It was possible to take manual readings of the amount of water in each ballast tank. The chief officer was in the habit of calculating how much water was transferred between tanks by timing the pumps and using their capacity of 7 tonnes per minute. Some of the straps used to secure the cargo to the deck were found not to meet regulations in force at the time, only being half as strong as they should have been.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_H%C3%B6egh_Osaka

[NewcastleFalcon]

Quite a lengthy PDF, the full report of the investigation report details the actual cargo and its location. Amongst the JCB's, land rovers ,the hyundai's and minis a few Frenchies sneaked in including a solitary citroen! (p35). No Bentleys at all and just 1 Rolls Royce.

full report

REgards Neil

[bobins]

Thanks for that, Neil. I'll actually enjoy reading that

An interesting opening page both for the fact they managed to shoehorn the word "ascertainment" into it and for the following:

"This report is not written with litigation in mind and, pursuant to Regulation 14(14) of the Merchant Shipping (Accident Reporting and Investigation) Regulations 2012, shall be inadmissible in any judicial proceedings whose purpose, or one of whose purposes is to attribute or apportion liability or blame."


I remember seeing on one of the various fly-on-the-wall type programs about the shipping and cargo industry where they quoted one of the loadmasters of a ship. When asked how many straps you need to secure a load on a cargo ship his response was : "If you can still see the load, then there aren't enough straps on it"