Athenian Venture

[JK]

On April 22 1988,at approximately 0200, the CSS Hudson (now CCGS Hudson) witnessed an explosion on the horizon about 350 nautical miles southeast of Cape Race and proceeded to the scene which was about 40 miles away.

What they discovered was a tanker heavily ablaze, to the point that her name was not identifiable, even though the Hudson approached as close as possible. In fact, the Hudson officers thought it was a collision involving two ships as the tanker had broken in half and the bow was 2 miles away from the stern section.

The ship was later identified by the house insignia on the stack.

On that date, I was sitting at breakfast on my ship, when this item came on Canada AM. Since I knew a good friend was on a tanker, in transit from Europe to Montreal and would be somewhere in the area given their sailing date, it was nerve racking until the ship was identified.

I just came across this St John's newspaper article from August of last year which has references to letters from crew written to family members describing the ship condition in the months prior to this voyage.

I guess this will be a incident that will never be satisfactorily answered as to the cause.


http://www.thetelegram.com/Arts---Life/ ... disaster/1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOM7ACYizz4

[JollyJack]

Unfortunately, there are many ships like Athenian Venture. As long as there is no oversight of seaworthiness, as long as shipowners hire companies to insect their ships, as long as there are no meaningful consequences for wanton and reckless disregard of crew's health and safety and as long as seafarers are disposible, there always will be.

The great improvement in tankers happened after Exxon Valdez had a spill and Exxon had to pay to get it cleaned up. They made sure that every tanker they chartered after that was seaworthy, verified by a Vetting Inspector. Port State Control has helped too, a detained vessel, or one with deficiencies, is logged in an international data base. Prospective charterers check the ship's record, as do insurance companies who insure the ship. A poor record means lower charter rates and higher insurance fees.

Nobody looks out for the crew, Jolly Jack is on his own! Sure, there are laws and regulations, but the penalties for contravention are laughable. Fines of a few thousand are just the cost of doing business. When a crew dies, a few bucks to the widows shuts them up, Insurance will pay for ship and cargo.

Canada is working toward "Delegation", where Canadian flag vessels will not be inspected by Transport Canada, but by classification societies, who are paid by the shipowner. They issue Certificates of Seaworthiness on behalf of Canada. It's not the first time a shipowner, told by a Class Society he needs extensive steel work, has fired the Class and hired one who will tell him the ship is perfect. If the flag state threatens to enforce regulations, he'll just change flag to another "Maritime" nation like a sand spit called Vanuatu or a vacation resort like Barbados. In my 40-odd years experience, as long as a ship's Master has a supply of Johnny Walker and Marlborough, he'll get his statutary Certificates updated by Class.

[JK]

I have heard similar opinions from more then one person. Brown bag stories abound.

The Athenian Venture would have just disappeared without a trace, except for the lookouts on the Hudson. I was told later that it took a week to be able to get near the stern section and the last I heard it was under tow to Greece. I didn't know it had sank.

I just remembered that I had learned more details back in 1988 because for some reason I had a tour of JRCC in Halifax. I was on a course at the nautical institute (MED 1maybe?) at Pier 21 (before the days of Port Hawksbury Nautical Institute) and JRCC had this tanker's location under tow, on their chart of the Atlantic Ocean. At this time, I was told that when the stern section was eventually boarded, it was found that the engineroom was not burnt out.



*JRCC-Joint Rescue Coordination Center.