The Marine Accident Investigation Branch report into the listing, flooding and grounding of Hoegh Osaka at Bramble Bank in the Solent on 3 January 2015 has been published.
The ginormous cargo ship, which was carrying around 1,400 vehicles and took onboard over 3,000 tons of water, remained in the Solent for 19 days before it was assisted back to Southampton on 22nd January 2015.
Grounding was pure chance
At the time, Ingar Skiaker, chief executive of Hoegh Autoliners praised the actions of the captain and pilot for ‘purposely grounding’ the vessel on Bramble Bank, but the report tells a different story, revealing it was pure chance the ship hit the shallow water.
Had Hoegh Osaka turned a few minutes before or afterwards, the vessel would have hit deep water. Traffic to the busy Southampton Docks would have been severely disrupted, with cargo ships, cruise ferries (such as the Queen Mary) being affected, not to mention the knock-on effect for the oil refinery.
Conclusions
The 75 page report (embedded below) details the sequence of events that led up to the incident, what happened during, as well as what action will be taken as a consequence.
The conclusions of the MAIB investigation revealed:
- The ship was allowed to set sail before its stability condition had been accurately calculated
- The actual cargo weight and stowage was significantly different to the final cargo tally supplied to the ship
- Most of the cargo weights were estimated, rather than actual values
- An additional 112 cargo units had been loaded weighing 616.7t
- The chief officer falsified the sounding records
- Some high and heavy cargo units were thought to have not been properly secured
- 27% of the cargo sustained damage
- A change to the itinerary meant vehicles were loaded at Southampton as first port of call not final
- If maintaining original itinerary, would have sailed from Southampton with significantly more bunker fuel oil on board and, with cargo filling its lower decks, its stability would have been greatly improved.
The report
Full details can be found in the report below. Click on the full screen icon to see larger version.
Image: © With kind permission of Benjamin Tonner
