SS EL FARO Missing

J

j-d

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This is upsetting:
EL FARO and sisters EL MORRO and EL YUNQUE, are frequent visitors to the Blount Island Marine Terminal in Jacksonville. Missing at sea for well over 48 hours.
http://elfaroincident.com/
This ship is no toy, no old wooden planker either.
El-Faro-476162.jpg

790-feet, 31,000 tons, built 1975, crew of 33. That many souls, that many families. If you're praying folk, please do...
 
latest from a Coast Guard news release
NASSAU, Bahamas – An intensive search by U.S. Coast Guard and Navy aircraft has turned up a life ring but no other sign of a cargo ship with 33 people on board that lost power and communications off the southeastern Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin.
The search covered a large expanse of the Atlantic Ocean near Crooked Island for the El Faro, which was taking on water as it was battered by massive waves at the height of the hurricane. The search was halted at nightfall and was expected to resume Sunday.
Authorities don't know yet what happened to the ship or whether the discovery of the life ring means that the crew were forced to abandon the ship, said Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss, a Coast Guard spokesman in Miami.
 
Trying to kept to a tight schedule will always come back to bite you. A steel hull can only flex so much before it fails, old steel flexes even less. The vessel is 40 years old, about twice the normal useful life span of a commercial ship. I would not want to be the last A.B.S Surveyor and/or U.S.C.G. Marine Inspector to have carried out the most recent hull internal inspection, or maybe more accurately the Person who signed off on that last inspection. Pray for the crew. The water is warm in that area, life capsules and rafts, while uncomfortable will keep you alive. Minor correction to the title of this post, this is a Diesel Powered ship, so proper term is M/V "EL Faro", you would have dig up a crew from the grave to find someone that could fire up and run a steam ship in these United States.

Latest from Tote Maritime
http://elfaroincident.com/resources/faqs/
 
Gotta ask.

Why was this ship anywhere near the hurricane? Not like we didn't know it was there.
Why in this day and age with ais, epirbs, etc is it so hard to locate it or are we saying the ship went down and we are looking for life rafts which I assume they had though I would think they have life boats!
I guess it's not hard for a ship like this loaded to roll over and I guess that would be worst case scenario.
 
Commercial tug at Last Known Position of El Faro reports oil sheen and one container reported from the vessel. No sighting of life boats or rafts. Not looking good for the crew. Keep praying.
 
L Keith, not sure about your statement regarding steam ships. The United States Navy still uses steam. The current Wasp class LHDs are all steam driven, as are our nuclear carrier fleet. Lots of young engineering teams with extensive steam experience.
 
quote:
Originally posted by L. Keith

Commercial tug at Last Known Position of El Faro reports oil sheen and one container reported from the vessel. No sighting of life boats or rafts. Not looking good for the crew. Keep praying.

Click to expand...


Life ring was not hugely significant. One container provides good datum for the search, but in and of itself doesn't mean much more than one broke off the stack in heavy weather. A significant oil sheen, on the other hand means a bit more.
 
El Farro, El Yunque and El Morro actually are steamships. One of my boat crew member is a retired CG CWO, marine inspector in Jacksonville. We were doing a harbor patrol and one of them was in port. He commented: "It's a steamship and those aren't common because they require many more crew." Dig deep enough and you'll see she's a steamy. I don't know how much the propulsion technology affects the sustainability of the ship, but it does put more lives in harm's way. Yes, PRAY!
 
I stand corrected. That accounts for the five Polish Nationals that are crew members. When you leave the US Navy you have to test to obtain a Merchant Marine Engineer's license to operate Steam Powered Vessels, very few go for that license as modern vessels are diesel/marine fuel oil powered. Go look at her Port State record, there are quite a few loss of power incidents in her history and she was laid up and out of service as late as December of 2013.
 
So why are there so many new steam powered LNG vessels and why is steam preferred on LNG carriers?
 
Maybe they can use the LNG to generate the steam on LNG carriers. It may not be the most efficient but that is the way it got started?
 
They use the boil off from the LNG cargo to fuel the boilers. Basically Free fuel for the ship operators. The new builds LNG carriers are not US Flag and do not need US licensed crew to man. This country has very few US Flag deep draft vessels (Only in the domestic trade to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the small US protectorate Island of the Pacific and the little volume of cargo moving to US Military bases on foreign soil) as the crew cost is very high compared to foreign flag cost and the vessel is required to be built substantially in the United States, which adds to the cost. Coastwise oil trade is generally handled by US Flag ATB's and by dedicated US Flag Tug/Barge combo. There are US Flag tankers that handle coastwise oil transfer but they are few and far between and command very high rates.
 
Ok, educate me here. You can run diesel on NG too. Just change the injection. Why not do that? So where are the missing BTUs? Is it that steam is more efficient that it justifies the labor costs on LNG? Is the labor on a LNG more so that the caring of the steam is not incremental costs?
 
Latest is more containers, life rings, life jackets, wood, styrofoam, and 'non-cargo deck materials'.

Also just realized they had no free fall or hardtop boats - just two open lifeboats on davits and rafts. Given the likely wx conditions when whatever happened happened, and the fact they'd lost the plant and were at the mercy of the sea (which in fact has no mercy, decency, nor any other feelings. It just is) - launching an open lifeboat from the davits has the same chance of success as a retirement plan built on scratch tickets.
 
USCG held a briefing 1000 EDT today and called EL FARO sunk. They found a body in an exposure suit that wasn't identifiable. Also apparently a smashed life boat.
 
What a shame.
Still question decision to head into the storm.
Seems like this was avoidable, sole decision shouldn't be the Captains.
 
The company has already keel hauled the Master. From the FAQ portion of their website:

Who authorized the voyage? Should the ship have been sailing?
TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico authorized the sailing knowing that the crew are more than equipped to handle situations such as changing weather
 
The type of lifeboat seen on pictures had to have played a role compared to the stern launched type you are on many if not most ocean going large ships. I dit see how these can be launched in the conditions they encountered

Two factors played a role in this tragedy. First, Joaquin was not forecasted to drift SW that close to their route and it was not forecasted to intensify that much and that quickly. The 24 to 36 hour forecast was off by 40 to 50 Kts

The other issue is that once the ship was past nassau and Eleuthera they had no way to turn west away from the storm until past Long Island Apparently the last position was northeast of acklins indicating they didn't even try to make a westerly turn once past Long Island.
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

The type of lifeboat seen on pictures had to have played a role compared to the stern launched type you are on many if not most ocean going large ships. I dit see how these can be launched in the conditions they encountered

Two factors played a role in this tragedy. First, Joaquin was not forecasted to drift SW that close to their route and it was not forecasted to intensify that much and that quickly. The 24 to 36 hour forecast was off by 40 to 50 Kts

The other issue is that once the ship was past nassau and Eleuthera they had no way to turn west away from the storm until past Long Island Apparently the last position was northeast of acklins indicating they didn't even try to make a westerly turn once past Long Island.

Click to expand...


A freefall lifeboat is pretty much all they could have successfully launched in that kind of weather. You're not going to get away the lifeboats in a hurricane when they're both open topped davit boats that high up. The boat they found was likely smashed to pieces before it hit the water.

I'm still hopeful they find survivors. Anyone know what the avg water temp is in that area?
 
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