did you guys see this? car container ship sinking in English Channel (LAC)

[Geraint Lloyd]

the english channel is supposedly the busiest shipping
lane in the world.
at the narrowest point it is 20 miles wide and
supposedly has ~400 
vessels per day through it

the car transporter went down near ramsgate as i
recall

in a 'rare' bout of cooperation between the french and
english traffic 
moves NE along the french coast and SW past dover.
in addition, there are several ferry companies
operating ROROs between 
dover - calais, folkestone-boulogne, etc
it's a bit busy

as far as I recall, at least one of the three (!)
'aftershocks' took 
place whilst an British, French and Belgian navy ships
were standing by 
trying to ward off traffic.

Bit from the bbc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/news/stories/200301/04/tanker.shtml

"The situation is critical but stable," he said late
Friday. The 
243-metre (790-feet) Turkish tanker, which had set
sail from the Belgian 
port of Antwerp, hit the wreck of the Tricolor despite
the presence of 
three surveillance boats and a ring of luminous buoys.

The Tricolor had already been hit by another ship, the
3,000-tonne 
Nicola, two days after it went down on December 14
carrying more than 
2,850 luxury cars worth an estimated 30 million
dollars (28.5 million 
euros).

Yamac had previously told British shipping gazette
Lloyd's List that he 
had no idea the wreck of the Tricolor lay in his path.
But Le Soir said 
he had changed his tune, blaming the French patrol
boat for leading him 
south of warning buoys instead of north.


after 8 years in offshore oil and gas survey, i find
this shocking but 
not surprising
the number of times we've had to pull the gear up to
get out of the way 
of some bulk carrier (probably on autohelm with the
deck officer having 
a 'bat' at some "romantic" movies in his cabin)
despite the fact that we 
have had:
the "restricted ability to manoeuvre" shapes / lights
on.
have tried all radio channels and various languages
inc GMDSS (depends 
on ethnic diversity of our crew) politely explaining
that we are tied to 
the seabed with a $5mil ROV (sub)
have fired a Search And Rescue Transponder (SART) to
try and illuminate 
their radar a bit
have shot flares at inbound vessel (wakes em up if
it's a tanker though)

by then we are standing on the back deck with life
vests on.

geraint


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