Originally published at: Security camera footage of wave breaking freighter in half | Boing Boing
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Dear God. I really feel for that captain, as well as the injured and lost crew.
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The skip called the Mayday, but did not provide any location data. Not a lot of help to any potential rescuers who may have been monitoring the frequency [VHF channel 16 is the international hailing frequency]. Notice there was no immediate radio reply, too.
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It’s a bit more complex in the linked article:
"The ageing vessel was en route from the Georgian Port of Poti to Bulgaria’s Port of Burgas when it ran into trouble on January 15.
Following an appeal for help it was allowed to anchor just off Bartin on Turkey’s Inkumu coast, where 12 crew members two days later found themselves stuck on board as the bow clearly started breaking up amidships in heavy swells."
Did Turkey not allow them to dock because the ship had been found to be unsafe? Two days is a long time to be anchored after having “problems”. This seems like an odd situation overall.
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The ship was apparently being used well beyond its useful life. This is from another news story:
“In this video, we see how the lives of seafarers are played with by going through surveys even though the sheet metal of a 46-year-old ship has reached the breaking point. Just as it was certain that the MV Bilal Bal ship would sink four years ago, it was certain that the MV Arvin would sink,” said the Turkish maritime union Platform of the Sea Workers.
A port state control inspection in Georgia last year found extensive deficiencies on board the Arvin , including deck corrosion and ill-maintained weathertight hatches, according to her Equasis record.
Note: this would be the other Georgia, btw
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This ship seems like it bottomed out between the waves.
This must have been what it was like somewhat on the Edmund Fitzgerald. A Great Lakes Ore Freighter that sank in Lake Superior.
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It was a long, thin ship like the Edmund Fitzgerald: a good design for calm weather but they can be snapped by large waves. Perhaps the ‘right thing’ might have been to meet the waves sideways on. Yes, ships never do that, normally…
Note also the comments from someone who claims to have seen information from ‘secret sources’ that this was an insurance scam. He uses lots of CAPITALS too. Sheesh, shut up already, dude.
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There’s already a tasteless “truther” movement?
Dang, I wanted to start one myself.
Nobody joined my “Esgaroth was an inside job” campaign.
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Smaug is FAKE NEWS made up by the same folks who drummed up the Sauron hoax! Everyone knows dwarven steel doesn’t melt from dragon breath! There is no Smaug, they just don’t want anyone else to have to have the same opportunity to get rich that they have!
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The 1975 vessel
I too have a 1975 vessel… some days I feel like I could break in half. 
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The 1972 model is even worse. Trust me.
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Dragon Fire isn’t hot enough to burn wooden structures!
@WHY_NOT Back in '63, they built with tougher materials; though my hull is significantly radioactive, and they’ll need special paperwork when they take me to breaker’s yard.
Welcome aboard, comrade! Grab yourself a life jacket and prepare to start bailing.
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Taking waves large enough to snap the hull on the less reinforced side seems likely to be an even worse idea. I sit and watch the lake freighters come in during storms sometimes and I don’t think any of them have ever intentionally aimed that way.
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It’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.
The front is not supposed to fall off.
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Every shipwreck story has that “insurance scam” guy. I’m pretty sure there were people who called the Titanic an insurance scam.
Parallels to the Edmund Fitzgerald are likely apt. The Edmund Fitzgerald was made by taking a ship design and adding several cargo segments in the middle to increase the capacity. Navigators had mentioned its tendency to flex and be difficult to control in heavy seas. It was likely a ship always sailing on borrowed time.
In a coincidence this ship was commissioned on the same year the Fitzgerald sank.
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The front fell off…
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That would run the risk of capsizing in any ship, whereas meeting the waves head-on is only dangerous if your ship is at risk of snapping in half; but if you knew that was the case (or if you hadn’t decided to roll the dice on it), you wouldn’t have left port to begin with.
Come to think of it, I don’t know whether snapping in half is actually more survivable than flipping over on a ship like that.
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I demand to see Elrond’s birth certificate! We all know he’s really a human and not eligible to be the lord of Rivendell! And he has Morgoth Derangement Syndrome too!
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