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BajaNews
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Small spill from grounded ship contained
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060117-9999-1m17...
By Sandra Dibble
January 17, 2006
A small fuel spill Sunday from the grounded container vessel APL Panama was quickly controlled, and it appears to have caused no significant
environmental damage, a Mexican official said yesterday morning.
Workers removed some 1,500 pounds of tainted sand from Conalep Beach, near a residential neighborhood south of the Ensenada port, said Ricardo
Castellanos Percevault, the top official in Baja California for Mexico's environmental watchdog agency, Profepa.
The contamination occurred Sunday morning as salvage crews pumped water from a ballast tank that had been contaminated with fuel oil, said Jens
Meier-Hedde, managing director of the company that owns the vessel, Mare Britannicum Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH & Co. A crack from an adjoining
fuel tank had led to the contamination, Meier-Hedde said.
The vessel's ballast tanks take in and expel seawater to provide stability and buoyancy.
"It was noticed very soon, and the pumping was stopped," said Meier-Hedde, speaking from his office in Bremen, Germany. Workers from Titan Maritime
LLC, a U.S.-based salvage company, "had booms on the stern and the bow of the ship, and immediately cleaned up the beach."
The majority of the fuel on the vessel ? about 3,000 tons ? was pumped out last week at the request of Mexican officials, who have feared that damage
to the vessel could result in a leak.
The APL Panama ran aground shortly after 6 p.m. Dec. 25, and efforts to float it have been unsuccessful so far as surf and sand push it toward shore.
As many as seven tugs pulling on its bow with more than 40,000 horsepower have moved it 20 degrees from shore, but not far enough to start pulling the
880-foot vessel toward open water.
Later this week, a barge fitted with powerful hydraulic pulling machines is expected to arrive in Ensenada to double the tugs' power. Meier-Hedde said
the goal is to have the machines in place during high tides later this month.
Just how the APL Panama ran aground remains the subject of speculation in Ensenada, as little official information has been forthcoming. Port
officials say they cannot discuss the case while it is under investigation by the Communications and Transportation Ministry.
Port officials say the vessel was scheduled to meet a pilot to guide it into port at 7 p.m. It ran aground nearly 50 minutes earlier, at 6:12 p.m.
Meier-Hedde agreed that the vessel, carrying cargo from Oakland, had arrived earlier than scheduled, but said the captain had called ahead.
"In my opinion, he was irritated that the pilot boat wasn't there, he proceeded very slowly ahead, and unfortunately went too far and touched ground,"
he said. " . . . He didn't realize that the water would become that shallow that soon."
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sylens
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access to beach again
although it is still not permitted to climb to the beach by the parking lot, about 1/2 kilometer south of that it is possible to cross over the dunes
to the beach.
damage appears minimal and crews are out in the sand filtering it for gooey stuff.
much relieved at realtively minimal damage.
lili
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bajaandy
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| Quote: | Originally posted by woody in ob
it's amazing that the ship hasn't listed one way or another with all that weight up top. |
HA! How could it list? It's stuck in the sand! I bet that will be a different story if/when they get that baby back out into open water. Anybody
remember the Posidon Adventure? But I think that's being optimistic... that sucker dosen't look like it's going anywhere any time soon.
subvert the dominant paradigm
"If you travel with a man, you must either fall out with him or make him your good friend."
JBL Noel
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paul r
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container ship update?
hi gang.... what's the latest on ship?....
[Edited on 1-20-2006 by paul r]
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Bruce R Leech
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check the other thread I think it is pretty much up to date.
Hose A usually post anything new on the ship. there is just not much new going on right now. just a lot of finger pointing.
[Edited on 1-20-2006 by Bruce R Leech]
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
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Bruce R Leech
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good morning Hose A.
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
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Bruce R Leech
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Mood: A lot cooler than Mulege
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no it is going to be after Easter now we are to busy to get away.
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
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bajaandy
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I'm going to play tourist and go down there to check it out tomorrow. I figure its a good excuse to get a morning surf in Baja Norte and a few tacos.
I'll be sure to report back if I learn anything other than the fact that a big boat is still stuck on the beach and will probably be there for a
while.
subvert the dominant paradigm
"If you travel with a man, you must either fall out with him or make him your good friend."
JBL Noel
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sylens
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results of investigation
reported in ensenada newspaper "el vig?a" confirm that the grounding was the result of human error. the ffirst officer reported that in his opinion
the apl panam? was proceeding with excessive speed, and that the captain did not come to the bridge as he (the first officer) requesteed on two
occasions. also cited in report, the captain had previously entered the port on a ship similar to apl panam?.
ooooops
lili
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Tomas Tierra
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Any New news from any of you Ensenadense's?? Very curious!
Still hard aground I assume??
Tomas
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bajabound2005
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Here's a site with lots of pix and info on this fiasco:
http://www.cargolaw.com/2006nightmare_apl_panama.html
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bajajudy
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I love the title "Ship Happens"
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lizard lips
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Its still there but it looks like it may cut loose soon. The bow is moving slowly.
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BajaNews
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Container Ship Still Aground in Ensenada, Mexico
http://www.mexidata.info/id762.html
An Editorial from the Gringo Gazette North
by Nancy Conroy
January 23, 2006
That deafening silence emanating from the Ensenada Port Authority, in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, about the container ship APL Panama grounding
is the unmistakable sound of a media blackout. Nobody who knows anything is talking, and when they do the things that they say are limited. So far
little official information has been provided, and officials have certainly not offered any explanation about how this wreck could have occurred. A
larger area of the beach has now been cordoned off, which effectively keeps out observers.
In the meantime, APL Panama officials, comfortably ensconced in their offices in Germany, are feeding upbeat assessments via telephone to the U.S.
press, who are equally comfy up there in San Diego. But the view from the ground here in Mexico is a bit different. And there are plenty of tough
questions that need to be answered about this disaster.
First, it is obvious that both the Port Authority and the ship?s owners are trying to put a positive spin on things. On December 28, three days after
the grounding, the Ensenada Port Authority marketing director told the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, "We anticipate the tugs will come and tug it
off the sandy bottom and the ship will proceed to Ensenada."
Even at that early date anyone could see that the ship was not stuck on any ?sandy bottom,? it was up on the beach. Later, after the first oil spill,
the Union-Tribune reported that a spokesman for the ship?s owners claimed that the salvage company "had booms on the stern and the bow of the ship,
and immediately cleaned up the beach.?
Interesting.
If the salvage crew had booms on the stern and bow of the ship, then why haven?t any Ensenada witnesses seen these booms? No bow and stern oil booms
were ever seen in the pounding surf either before or after the oil spill, and deploying them in breaking surf would be ineffective anyway. Maybe the
ship?s owners, speaking from Germany, thought that nobody would notice this detail.
Finally, the Port Captain announced that the rescue attempt on January 14 failed, but that the efforts did succeed in moving the bow 20 degrees out to
sea. This claim must be examined closely. Yes the ship did pivot on its keel, but the stern is now 50 feet higher up on the beach than it was
before. Was this shift really a positive result of the rescue attempt, or did the stern accidentally slip up the beach during the high tide the night
of Friday the 13th?
What other facts might they be fudging?
The main issue, though, is how this wreck could ever have occurred in the first place? Plenty of obvious questions are raised by the date of the
incident, which was Christmas Sunday. Christmas Day is an official holiday in Mexico, suggesting that the port might not have been fully staffed that
evening. Also, Christmas cheer was flowing freely throughout Ensenada, and who knows if the people at sea might have sipped a toddy or two?
The First Mate has stated that the Captain was late getting to the bridge. Little is known about what happened on the bridge that night, but somebody
clearly was not paying attention. Fathometers indicate when a ship is getting into shallow water, so there must have been plenty of warning time when
no corrective action was taken.
Then, as the ship approached the beach, the Panama attempted to turn southward. It turned perpendicular to the wind and surf, and the huge boat acted
like a sail and washed up on the beach. Instead of attempting to turn, perhaps the Panama should have thrown the engines in reverse, or beached at a
90-degree angle.
Next there is the question of whether the two tugboats that initially responded to the crisis acted correctly. Two tugs cannot do much, so should
more equipment have been available? An eyewitness reported that the tugs initially attempted to push the ship out to sea, then attempted to pull it.
But, for some reason the tugs abandoned their efforts. If they had simply held their positions and continued to pull on the ship, perhaps they could
have prevented the Panama from running further aground.
The day after the grounding, the Ensenada Port Authority immediately blamed the ship?s Captain, saying that an ?investigation? had determined that the
Port was not at fault. Is a one day investigation really enough to determine all the facts? Can the Port Authority be trusted to investigate itself?
There is plenty of motivation in Ensenada to keep things quiet. The less information anyone provides, the more likely the story is to drop off the
public radar screen. This port is attempting to position itself as a major alternative to Long Beach or San Diego, and embarrassing incidents like
this are bad for business.
Mums the word.
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BajaNews
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Testimony cites errors in grounding
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20060123-9...
Fresh insight into Ensenada accident
By Sandra Dibble
January 23, 2006
ENSENADA ? After nightfall on Dec. 25, the 880-foot container vessel APL Panama was preparing to enter the port of Ensenada. It was dangerously close
to shore, and moving too fast. No port pilot was on board to guide it.
Last-minute efforts to avoid disaster came too late. At 6:12 p.m., on a night with good visibility, light breezes, smooth seas and swells over 6 feet,
the APL Panama ran aground, 1.5 miles southeast of the port's entrance in the surf off a wide sandy beach. It has been stuck there ever since.
There were no equipment failures ? only human error ? that led to the grounding, according to sworn testimony by the captain and first mate, obtained
by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
As salvage crews launch their second major push to refloat the vessel later this week, the statements shed some light on what was happening on the
bridge of the APL Panama as it ran aground. "In my view it was too high speed," said Teo Motusic, the vessel's first officer, and second-in-command,
in testimony before port officials. "My opinion is that the captain did not come to the bridge on time."
Motusic's declarations and those of the vessel's captain, Zupan Branko, paint a vivid picture of the half hour before the grounding and the desperate
last-minute maneuvers that proved futile.
The incident and efforts to float the ship have drawn widespread attention. The ship's sheer size ? it is nearly as long as three football fields ?
overwhelms the landscape, and local residents have been flocking to see it. A taxi driver made television news last week, standing before the vessel
as he sang a corrido telling its story.
"It's something extraordinary, that you only see once in a lifetime," said Capt. Jos? Luis R?os Hern?ndez, Ensenada's harbor master.
The event has provoked curiosity from the marine community far beyond Ensenada. One Calfornia Web site features photos and comments, and London-based
maritime insurance companies and shipping journals post regular updates on the salvage efforts.
The players themselves are multinational. The vessel, sailing under an Antigua and Barbuda flag, is owned by a company based in Bremen, Germany, Mare
Britannicum Schiffahrtgesellschaft mbH & Co KG, and chartered by a global transportation company, APL, which has corporate offices in Oakland. The
25 men on board were also an international group, with the captain and officers from Croatia, the first engineer from Poland and crew from Myanmar.
The officers' statements for the first time lift the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the incident. The ship's owners nor and Mexican officials
have been unwilling to publicly offer details about the case, under investigation by Mexico's Communications and Transportation Ministry. It is being
treated as an accident, and the captain and first mate have been allowed to leave the country.
Carrying some 900 containers weighing 30,000 tons, the vessel was traveling from Oakland, preparing for a regularly scheduled call in Ensenada before
making stops down the Mexican coast and then crossing the ocean to Japan, Taiwan and China.
As is the practice in ports worldwide, ships are supposed enter the port of Ensenada only with a pilot on board. The pilot meets the vessel at an
offshore location, in this case 2.3 miles west of the port entrance. Port officials say their records show the pilot was scheduled to meet the APL
Panama at 7 p.m.
The captain, Branko, said the crew told the ship's agent in Ensenada at noon the ship would arrive at 6 p.m., according to his sworn testimony given
in the presence of his British attorney at the Ensenada harbor master's office. Dec. 31.
The first mate, Motusic, in testimony on Jan. 2, said he tried to call the pilot on the radio from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. "but without success."
As they approached the port, Motusic said he called the captain twice from the bridge. But the captain did not show up to take command until 5:42 p.m.
Motusic said the captain was slow to react as he pointed out the buoys marking the channel's entrance, and the arriving pilot vessel.
"The captain was all the time looking ahead, and he said, 'I still cannot see the pilot. Where is the pilot?' I told him and pointed, 'Captain, there
is the pilot, there is the pilot!' " Motusic testified.
The captain gave the order "hard to port wheel" ? to turn right. Then, the pilot called and warned, "Captain, you are going to the shallow waters,"
according to Motusic's testimony.
Under questioning from Ensenada's harbor master, Branko said it was his fourth time entering the port of Ensenada, and that all the equipment on board
was functioning. It was not until 6:05 p.m. that he realized the vessel was in danger, he said. Seven minutes later it ran aground.
"Why did you not drop any of the anchors?" the harbor master asked. "I did not consider that possibility because it was a very short time span,"
Branko replied.
Asked what he could have done to prevent the accident the first officer, Motusic, replied: "Everything happened very, very fast, and I was showing the
captain the position of the buoys, the channel, pilot boat and breakwater."
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BajaNews
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http://photos.signonsandiego.com/gallery1.5/beachedship/JG_8...
One of five powerful hydraulic pullers that is being readied on a 400 foot barge in National City for the Titan Maritime company to be went to
Ensenada to help in the removal of the 880' container ship APL Panama from the beach south of the entrance to the port where it went aground on
Christmas Day. Photo by John Gibbins
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bajaandy
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Perhaps the term "hard to port" refers to the Christmas-time beverage of choice on board ship that night.
As of Saturday the 21st, the ship is looking like it will be going no where soon. I was amazed at the sheer size of the ship and more so at the
closeness to shore. I can not believe that they plan to float this monster without removing any of the cargo.
On Saturday we arrived at about 8:00 a.m., well before any crowd of spectators. We were able to park at the end of the road where the salvage company
had made an access road across the beach dunes to the ship. A short walk to the cordoned off area provided really great views of what was going on.
There was a small skiff that took some of the workers on and off the ship. There were a few men (crew?) atop some of the containers just sitting
around. (You think they are still getting paid?)
A short walk south along the plastic orange fencing provided a view of the three tugs churning away. (I had the distinct impression that they may as
well have been attempting to move the Empire State building. That ship was not moving a bit.) There were guards posted at various areas. Two guards
were at the access road to the ship and a couple more were actually walking a beat up and down the fenced area. There was a jogger on the beach, and
no one seemed to care that he was there. Jogged north up the beach and then south again right next to the ship. We played by the rules and stayed
behind the orange fence. (Well, I did break the rules a tiny bit when I stepped over the fence to get a picture, but no one really seemed to care.)
In all it was quite a spectacle. As we were leaving, some vendors were just beginning to set up shop in anticipation of a good crowd of Saturday
tourists.
On our way back through town we stopped for tacos and tortas at taquria El Pique. A lot of carne and adobada tacos and some quesadillas and tortas
later we were feeling fat and happy and worked our way back north for a leisurely drive home. Waited about 45 minutes at the border where we
presented our passports to the agent and were waved through.
I think it would be interesting to be there when they try to float her next week.
subvert the dominant paradigm
"If you travel with a man, you must either fall out with him or make him your good friend."
JBL Noel
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bajajudy
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"Port is to the left, if I'm not mistaken."
You are correct. I always rememered that because left and port have 4 letters. We wont get into the number in starboard and right....but they are
not the same
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David K
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Driving back north from El Rosario yesterday, the ship was quite a site from Hwy. 1... between Costco and the Ford dealership, driving north. Two (at
least) tug boats were smoking away as they kept tight the ropes, I presume...
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Dave
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| Quote: | Originally posted by grover
| Quote: | | "hard to port wheel" ? to turn right |
Port is to the left, if I'm not mistaken. 
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Depends. 
Reverse prop and hard-a-port would swing the stern in the opposite direction. Could someone confirm if the bow is grounded North, or South?
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