Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Transeuropa Shipping Lines* No Comment – Eurovoyager operation of watertight doors “ineffective”


An inquiry into a serious accident resulting in a crush injury to a crew member aboard the Eurovoyager, operating between Ostend and Ramsgate has revealed serious safety worries involving operation of the ships watertight safety doors.

On November 3rd last year, a crew member was trapped when one of the ships watertight doors closed crushing him, he was found unconscious, by another member of crew some four minutes after.ship1

During the investigation, the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) , discovered that ship had sailed on several occasions with watertight doors, left in the open position, as evidenced by the ships Voyage Data Recorder therefore making them “ineffective” (according to MAIB’s report)shiptwo

The BBC's report claims the company TransEuropa Shipping Lines will not be commenting, which seems to be a bit short sighted on the old PR front.

Given some terrible occurrences to ships in the past, you might think a quick statement to acknowledge earlier shortcomings and a promise that you'll do what is necessary in the future would be a minimum response.

Anyway take a gander at the MIAB report by clicking here

*TSL is a sister company to TransEuropa Ferries N.V.

4 comments:

  1. These ferries are known as Ro-ro
    Roll on/Roll off, with watertight doors open they can easily become Roll on/ Roll off / Roll over!

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  2. Thanks for that Tony interesting report, automatic watertight doors can be quite a dangerous safety feature.

    3.56 I think you may have got confused here these are not the external watertight doors that caused the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, these are internal watertight doors between compartments of the ship that are below the waterline, there purpose being to stop the ship from sinking if it is holed.

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  3. Watertight doors are there to prevent disaster, not just to hinder the crew. Leaving them open is a serious matter and if you look at the report you'll see why.

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