2 ships collide off Dutch coast; evacuation underway

We have had gail force storm over the weekend in the north sea with wind speeds up to 70 Kts. There is a lot of damage to coast of Germany and the Netherlands.

The cargo vessel "Julietta D" and the tanker "Pechora Star" were both on the hook off the coast of Ijmuiden waiting to enter the harbour at Ijmuiden. The anker chain of Julietta D broke in the storm and the ship drifted into the tanker.

No bigger damage to the tanker and no pollution from the cargo of the tanker.

But Julietta D was damaged with heavy water ingress into engine room. Due to the distress signal from the ship, two SAR helicopter and several SAR ships were send to the ship and 18 crew members were rescued from the vessel in distress.

Julietta D is presently drifting app. 15 nm north of the Dutch coast and is accompanied by salvage tugs. As soon as the weather allows, the ship will be towed into save harbour.

The tanker is capable to go to the harbour on its own, as soon as the weather allows to open the storm barrier at Ijmuiden.
Nobody got killed or seriously injured.

SOS means "save our souls". That's exactly what the SAR crews did again. Hats off to those brave men, saving our sailor!!!

Salvage crews have meanwhile entered the abandoned ship and are trying to take over a towing line from the salvage tug. The abandoned ship was drifting into an offshore wind park.

The captain of Julietta D is meanwhile questioned, why he did not use the available second anker to stop his ship from drifting. As there was and still is apperently no imminent danger of the ship sinking, he will also definately be asked by his ship owner, why he abandoned his ship that early and not staying with a minimal crew on board. Due to the international laws of the sea, an abandoned ship drifting in international waters, is concidered ownerless goods. This is haven for the crew of a salvage tug. The owner or the insurance company has to buy the ship back from them. Big money!! To bad it was none of my salvage tugs.

Below Julietta D

Just to confirm, I am not involved in salvage business. This pretty rough business is in the North Sea nearly fully in the hands of Dutch and Belgian Salvage companies. I have only Offshore utility vessels, like offshore platform towing and anker handling vessels. We are under long term contracts and are not lurking for opportunities of making money off the suffering of others!

But even for yacht owners, even for the owner of smaller yachts operating in open sea, knowing the international laws of the sea, concerning the difference between assistance, rescue and recovery / salvage is very important and can get very expensive for the boat owner, if the salvage ship operator is let's say, a little bit unscrupulous or aggressive.

Example one:

A yacht, while crossing a larger body of water, has an engine failure and the owner is asking for help. A ship is arriving and offers a tow. A line is trown and the crew of the yacht is accepting the line and ties it to the yacht by themselves. This is assistance on request and a commercial tug will recieve a towing fee. Official SAR vessels will normally only ask for a voluntary donation to their organisation. In most cases, this fee will be payed for by the comprehensive insurance, unless gross negligence has caused the engine failure, i.e. running out of fuel due to bad fuel management.

Example two:

The same situation as above and the crew of the assisting ship is offering help including help for the fastening of the line on the yacht. And the yacht crew accepts this type of help. A crew member of the tug is boarding the yacht and ties the line to the yacht with the yacht crew being passive. This is a typical example of aggressive salvage operation and has happened quite often, especially with yachts operated by older crew couples or with rented yachts. The owner crew is just happy to be assisted in the saving of their life and their ship and falls for this trick. This is concidered qualified assistance or even rescue and the salvage tug has the right of a salvage fee. This fee is depending on the value of the boat and the amount of effort by the salve crew. The really bad guys among the salvage tug operators even try to jump on board without permission of the ownership. The situation might not have been dramatic for the owners but the bill for this operation might as well be. The amount of money asked for this qualified assistance / rescue can be pretty shocking and in case of a legal dispute, the courts mostly decide in favour of the salvage company, unless the bill is really immorally high.

Yacht owners can only be warned to fall in for this trick, it will be expensive in any way. Unless You and / or Your crew is disabled, tell the salvage crew definately that You do not need help on board of Your boat and throwing a line is sufficient. Honest assistance crews will accept that.

Example three:

Yacht in distress, emergency call is transmitted and the crew and guests / ownership is abandoning the ship by entering the life boat, tender or life raft and loosens the leash between the yacht and the life raft and they drift away. This is typically the case with an apperently sinking yacht or a yacht assumed to be on fire (heavy smoke from the engine room). The salvage crew arrives, is boarding the abandoned yacht, secures a line and solves the imminent problem. As said above, this is the typical case of ownerless goods. The ownership or the insurance company has to buy the salvaged boat back from the salvage company. And this is the case where these salvage companies make big money.

In the case of the Julietta D, the Captain and it's crew did not seem to be willing and motivated to limit the damage on their own ship and the enviroment. That will happen with badly treated and underpayed crews of offshore flagged ships. " Captain, we have water ingress in the engine room, Captaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin".

Greatings from the former wicked Captain Francesco Schettino .

"The best cannot live in peace if evil does not like it"

Found some video of the rescue of the mariners from the Juliette D:



Two Dutch Coast Guard helos and 1 Belgian Air Force NH90 SAR were needed to get all 18 off the drifting ship.

Great job by the SAR crews. Those guys go flying, when the rest of the flying community takes cover in their hangars because of the bad weather. I had a friend from the German Navy Officer Academy, who was a Seaking SAR Pilot. His SAR stories were always jaw-dropping.

We had to do survival training in the North Sea every year. We got thrown off a navy tug only with our jet survival equipment (Immersion suit, jet helmet and life vest, of course not self inflating and an ejection seat seatpack with a one man life boat. Of course for our training not self inflating also. After at least one hour in the water, a Seaking helicopter arrived and winched us out of the water flew us toward the Navy vessel and winched us back down to the Navy tug. A great experience, especially when the old exercise immersion suits were taking over water. With the additional weight of that water in the legs of the suits, we got streched pretty good. And btw. none high ranking officers only got slots for those courses in winter!!!! But I must say, the air crews really knew what they were doing.

Honestly, this ship does not look like being in imminent danger of sinking. But the structures of the offshore windpark are already pretty close. A really juicy target for a salvage tug! Getting an abandoned but fully seaworthy cargo vessel on the hook; that is Christmas and Easter on a single day.

We have the next mishap in the North Sea off the coast of Germany as of this morning.

The 1.300 ft long box carrier Mumbai Maersk has run aground on its way from Rotterdam to Bermerhaven nort of the East Frisean island of Wangerooge. Today at 13.00 lcl time at high tide, several large salvage tugs will give it a try to pull her back into navigable waters. No imminent danger for human life jet, but if this giant brakes apart, the enviroment would be in real danger.

This enormous pile of metal will need some real pulling force to float free again. Lets hope that there will be no enviromental catastrophe. The grounded ship sits in a very sensitive nature reserve area.



I think, they will need bigger tugs than this toys on the picture to pull her free. After several gail force storms during the last days, a lot of soil has been moved on the bottom of the sea in the shallower water of the coastal area. Maybe the charts have to be corrected concerning the available water depth in certain areas.

My offshore shipping company has already been prewarned by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany and is on standby with two seismic vessels for remapping the traffic area in that region. The German Bay Approach is one of the highest density traffic areas on the seven seas.

I do not believe that a professional captain of such giant ship did try to take a short cut for entering the Weser River. Maersk is a very responsible shipping company with excellent and highly proficient officers.

The first towing attempt early in the morning was obviously unsuccsessful. The high tide was not high enough and the tugs not strong enough. Maersk has made a contract with a better equipped Salvage Tug company and will try again at a higher tide. Todays high tide at 13.00 lcl does not seem to be high enough. My anker handling tugs are to far in the north to be on the scene in time.



The little boat in front of Mumbai Maersk is a government sounding ship, looking for the optimum towing path. The situation is not as easy as it looked in the erly morning.

OUCH.......with it grounding another dent in the supply chain

There must be some serious soil sea floor changes from storms.

Yes, the whole sea bottom in that area is sand only. Especially the wadden sea and the long shallow beaches in front of the islands are loosing a lot of sand during each tide and even more during storms. During the recent gail force storms, especially the sand dunes and beaches in front of the dunes lost a large amount of its sand. Some of the beaches are completely gone. The North Sea is always gnawing on the shore line. And a lot of this sand is carried into the deeper parts of the open sea. The emergency command from Cushaven is on station with all availabel standby vessels.

But now it's taking revenge, that we have no more heavy salvage tugs on standby in Germany. Our large tugs Oceanic, Atlantic and Pacific would pulled that ship already into deeper water. The large multi purpose vessels can do a lot of task but nothing perfect like the old special built ocean tugs.



But Mumbai Maersk is really a giant. I am afraid, if they are not able to pull the ship free tonight, they have to deload the ship completely and pump the heavy fuel oil out. That will be a very expensive operation. I hope the Maersk vessel stays in one piece during the next storm, which is already inbound.

It appears that as I'm writing there are no less than nine tugs on the scene, the largest being a 67m AHTS.
Plus a couple of German CG 80m vessels.
If nothing else, they went aground in a place where it didn't take long to get some support.

Not even remotely thinking to fingerpoint at anyone, but interestingly, the ship is stuck outside the entrance channel - a quarter of NM south of it, give or take. And she must have turned 180 degrees upon grounding, because her bow is now pointing NW, instead of SE towards Bremenhaven.

All the best to all those involved for their efforts.

Mapism You are correct, Mumbai Maersk has left its planned ground track. But I still believe they did not try to make a shortcut. The Captain of a 1.300 ft Maersk vessel would not do that. The turn was probably caused by its tries to free itself without assistance.

There where so many vessels immediately available, because the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME) for the German Bay is perfectly located with its vessels in Cuxhaven on the Elbe River mouth.

The 80 meter coast Guard vessel Neuwerk is exactly, what I was talking about. They asked for the jack of all trades and the outcome was a large expensive vessel, which could not do anything perfect. And this ship is least suitable as an Ocean Tug. Not enough freeboard for open sea operations in heavy weather, the towing line movement is very limited due to the superstructure and the maximum bollard pull is ridiculous for such sized vessel.



The problem with the bottom of the sea in that area is, that any ship sitting longer in this grinding sand, will digg itself into the bottom and it will get more difficult to tow it free with every day.

The ancient sailor saying: North Sea = Murder Sea seems to be still valid.

Am I correct in guessing it's the kind of sandy bottom that creates a suction?

Like standing just at the edge of the shoreline in bare feet like when we were kids. My feet are sinking further with each wiggle.

In the early sixties my father lost a cargo vessel due to grounding in a gail force storm only a few miles away from the grounding of Mumbai Maersk. Our ship was driftet by the windforce and could not maintain track. There was no way of towing the ship off the shallow.

This is what the vessel looked after only a month



And this was the ship after a few years, beaten to death by the elements.



Soon after our mishap, annother crgo vessel went aground in the vicinity. This british ship is completely gone into the soil by now. Both wrecks were a tourist attractions during summer until they completely dissapeared

Just got the news that Mumbai Maersk has been towed off the shallow during the high tide of the night. The large Dutch salvage tugs did it.

The Mumbai Maersk Incidence had a lucky outcome. Mumbay Maersk was pulled off the shallow in the night and is now safely tied to container terminal at Bremerhaven.

Under the ccoordination of the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME) Cuxhaven, 8 tugs with a combined bollard pull of 766 metric tons were able to pull Mumbai Maersk aslant to port off the shallow


The main bollard pull was provided by the Dutch ocean tug Union Sovereign and the German Coast Guard vessel Neuwerk. Except from one more Dutch Salvage tug, all other tugs were local harbour / coastal tugs.





On this picture, You can clearly see the stupid towing line arrangement of this "multi purpose vessel". The ship can only pull straight over the stern.


A perfectly ccordinated operation by the commander on scene. Mumbay Maersk was pulled into safe waters and still under tow, the propulsion and steering systems were checked and it was confirmed that the hull was intact.

After these checks, Mumbai Maersk was allowed to proceed on its own power to the Bremerhaven Container Terminal, still escorted by the fleet of tugs. The Captain and the officers of Mumbai Maersk are now intervieved by the authorities about the incident. Rumours are saying, they had a temporarily rudder failure. That would explain the 180 degree turn prior the grounding.

The enviroment and the people along the North Sea Coast got really lucky away with this near catastrophe. But now starts the cleanup and some corrective actions by introducing new rules and restrictions. The complete German Bay Approach has to be remeasured as far as water depth is concerned. All three junctions into Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven and the Elbe River have to be resounded and mapped and the charts have to be amended accordingly.

The shallow, Mumbai Maersk was stuck on with its starboard side, was a dredged material disposal site, well marked in all sea charts. At Normal Zero, the depth is here normally about 12 meters. Mumbai Maersk had with its remaining 7.500 standard boxes and 7.000 metric tons of ballast water a draft of 13 meters. After pumping out the 7.000 tons of Ballast Water, the combined bollard pull of 766 tons could pull that giant free.

IMO, we need at least two new and very strong Ocean Tugs on standby in this area and there have to be several exercises anually, both as a table-top exercise and a real world exercise, in order to train such incidents. This time it was only a ultra large box carrier, next time it might be a big crude oil tanker.

I hope, some people have learned a few lessons.

The sounding and seismic ships will be busy in the next weeks .

Great posts. Thanks for the insight

Just received the final report of the Mumbai Maersk grounding. The reason for the grounding was no technical mulfunction or any other excuse, it was simple human error.

Pure fault of the Captain of Mumbai Maersk, his officers on duty on the bridge and believe it or not, the German Bay pilot!

The readout of the voyage recorder (ECDISC plot) and the bridge voice recorder including the recording of all radio calls came to this solution.

Mumbai Maersk was inbound Bremerhaven Container Terminal, when the captain got the call from the harbour authorities, that his berth at the Bremerhaven Container Terminal was still blocked by annother ship. He was asked to stay outside and wait for the call to enter the Weser river.

As such giants are not really capable of any dynamic positioning, the captain reversed course back to open sea in order to initiate a holding pattern or as we flyers say, he went for one turn in the holding. When initiating the second turn in the holding, the captain got the call, that his berth would be free upon his arrival.

Guess what, the captain ordered an immediate course reversal, with the pilot not intervening and Mumbay Maersk run into this dredging dump area shallow, which was clearly marked on all maps.

Means he did not take a shortcut but he made an unthinking and stupid maneuver. I have to take back my word from above, Captains of such large Maersk ship do not do that. Sorry but they do!

"Errare humanum est".

One more mishap on the seven seas.

The car transport ship Felicity Ace with 4.000 VW and Audi cars for the US market with a value of more than 330 million Euro on bord went on fire two days ago about 220 NM off the Azores. The crew abandoned the ship and was rescued by other ships. During the attempt to tow her to save harbour, Felicity Ace capsized and sunk.



Glad, I am not in that business. An enclosed fire in the cargo room with so many large Lithium Ion batteries (electric cars) so close together is really dangerous.