0730 phone call to say that one of the ships we insure has been involved in a collision near Odessa.
Yes, that is Ukraine.
Ships going to load Ukraine's exports are escorted in convoy under cover of darkness, blacked out, tracking instrumentation turned off (instructions of military authorities), so it should not be surprising that they turned into things that go bump in the night.
Queue sounds of crunching metal.
Problem is that we don't really know who hit 'us'. It's also possible they don't know who they hit.
It has been an interesting ol' day.
No one hurt. No oil spilled. It could have been worse.
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteYikes... might even be an 'own goal'? Glad it wasn't worse, prayers for improvement! YAM xx
Yup - own goal. We just have to find out which other 'team' member is was. They scurried off into the darkness.
DeleteOh dear. Sounds like heaps of paperwork for you. Thankfully no one was hurt. You have to wonder exactly what happened. I guess we may never know
ReplyDeleteAngela
Oh - we will know eventually. We are the Mounties of the marine world. Whether we can do anything about it in the end is a different question.
DeleteInteresting indeed. How does one go about investigating in such conditions?
ReplyDeleteDo you watch TV detective shows? Like that. Ask people who might have seen it (via all the fancy monitoring equipment employed these days). Somebody is always watching. We just have to find that somebody.
DeleteOops indeed! Hopefully there are too many legal loopholes involved in ‘ sorting it out’. Will it be a case of - he said, no she said or working in the dark?
ReplyDeleteRunning in a military escorted convoy might change all the rules when it comes to collision between ships, but you would think it shouldn't be too hard to find a ship with a crunched up nose that matches our crunched up port side. Presumably they have to exit the Black Sea at some stage via the Turkish Straits....sit and wait perhaps.
DeleteProbably a Russian spy sub....
ReplyDeleteoooh hadn't thought of that but it reminds me of a really good submarine story (or two).
DeleteOh dear! Good that no-one was hurt. Did you hear about the two naval warships that collided with each other in the Red Sea? Oops!
ReplyDeleteThey do it remarkably often in various parts of the world - and collide with merchant ships too. I do wonder what they teach naval cadets about navigation and watchkeeping.
DeleteOur son did his training contract in Liverpool (with HD) and did a lot of this kind of stuff in one of his seats, but I don't think he came across anything quite like that. Good luck recovering it from President Putin.
ReplyDeleteI bet he did come across something similar; HD are specialists in this kind of stuff (what we call wet lawyers). It wasn't the Russians this time - more of an 'own goal' (another in the convoy) as suggested by Yam Aunty.
Deletethat is scary thinking of a big ship running in the dark with other ships running in the dark. glad it was not worse
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed scary, and breaks al the rules of 'good seamanship' even if it has been ordered by the military authorities who are protecting the convoy, so heaven knows how we allocate fault/liability.
Deletemy humans hate getting those phone calls... although i quite enjoy when they have to get up and come through to the lounge to work in the middle of the night. More opportunities for me to get some cuddles. at least this one sounds interesting!
ReplyDelete