Subject: FW: Cernavoda U2
generator stator: a lift goes wrong Cernavoda U2 generator
stator now resting on the bottom of Hudson river
We are still shocked about
what happened but will try to describe as accurately as
possible the accident.
Today December 9, around
10:30 a.m. ( local time) we went to Albany port in order to
witness the Stator assembly loading as well as checking that
all crates mentioned into the Shipment Definition List. The
stator assembly was on the rail car and the port team was
installing the trunnions.
Around one o'clock p.m. the
rail car was brought close to the vessel for loading. In the
vessel was already loaded another generator for ENEL Italy.
As a matter a fact when discussed with the crew leader to
understand the route (first to Constanta and then to Italy)
he mentioned that in order to allow a proper balancing when
downloading it have to go first to Constanta.
This fact began to have a
real meaning to us after what happened. Around 2 p.m. the
loading preparation did start. After the slings were hooked
to the trunnions to started the lifting process. After some
time we have noticed that the process is very slow. Did ask
the crew leader what is the reason and he mentioned that due
to the vessel crane configuration (leaning beyond the vessel
boundary) the vessel has to be counter balanced by flooding
some compartments, and this takes time.
As you can see from the
attached pictures # 224 and 226 the time between downloading
start and real lifting from the rail car is more than 1
hour. This I believe gives a clear picture on the process
difficulty. Before starting the lifting during the balancing
process we noticed that the vessel was leaning towards the
shore, as a consequence of the distance between the vessel
axis and the generator one.
After starting the lift the
vessel begun to come slowly to its horizontal position and
reach this status when the stator assembly was almost
clearing the rail car (see pict. 228). From this point the
stator was lifted up (approx 2m) for vessel trunk loading.
We think that the maneuvering speed was much higher than
before. Personally we were expecting to be somehow closer to
the previous one.
Immediately after the
stator was clearing the dock the vessel starts leaning the
opposite side towards the Hudson river and in couple of
seconds flipped over and pulled very fast by the stator
weight. We were afraid that the vessel would sink completely
into the river. It was not like that, but still there are
three missing persons from the crew and some others
hospitalized with hypothermia. Beside that the surveyor
hired by GE to witness the activity who was on the vessel
during the accident to take pictures is now in the hospital
too.
Below are some data to make
the picture clearer.
The vessel STELLAMARE : -
Is 88m long and approx 7m deep. It was built in 1982. No
data for the loading capacity. - Was navigating under Dutch
flag and the crew was Russian - Is the smallest from the
vessels operated by JUMBO SHIPPING Netherlands - Is
considered small port capability vessel (meaning can fit
into a small port) - The two vessel cranes are able to
handle maximum 180t each
The 289-foot Stellamare,
flagged in the Dutch Antilles, had loaded 661 tons of
General Electric steel turbines bound for Italy and Romania,
Albany Mayor Gerald Jennings said. The ship tipped over as a
308-ton generator was being loaded around 3:10 p.m. Tuesday,
according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Eight members of the
18-person crew were removed from the river, Miller said.
Seven others were rescued from the ship, some by helicopter.
One crew member was upgraded to serious condition, and
another to fair condition, at Albany Medical Center,
hospital officials said. One man was treated and released.
Three crew members remained
missing after the cargo ship listed and partially sank at
the Port of Albany at about 3 p.m. Tuesday. The accident
involving the Stellamare tossed several men into the icy
waters of the Hudson River and prompted the Coast Guard to
close the river, left the ship tilted at a 50-degree angle,
and may have killed three seamen.
The ship's 18-man crew was
loading the second of two General Electric generators, each
weighing roughly 250 tons, when the boat listed to port,
rolled and became partially submerged in about 30 feet of
water. Several crewmen had to be pulled from the frigid
river.
"When they picked up the
piece and started to move it over the hatch, the ship
started to lean and it got away from them," said Paul
Fisher, a retired foreman with the port's longshoremen's
crew who said he spoke with a dozen of his former colleagues
after the accident. "Somebody screwed up." Fisher said
longshoremen often operate the cranes aboard ship, but never
on the Stellamare, which typically has a highly regarded
crew skilled with the cranes.
On Tuesday, two Stellamare
crane operators were working the shipboard cranes in tandem,
coordinated by a chief officer or captain via radio, he
said. Longshoremen were aboard the ship to observe the lift,
but did not direct it or operate the cranes, he said. "When
you work by sight, hand signals are universal and everyone
understands them," Fisher said. "The radio must have caused
the communication breakdown."
Generators loaded onto the
ship are usually placed on a metal holding platform, then
welded into place to prevent shifting, said Deacon Dick
Walker of the Albany Maritime Ministry. The boat, bound for
Italy and Romania, was already holding 600 tons of cargo
when it started taking on water, said Albany Mayor Jerry
Jennings. The Stellamare is owned by Jumbo Shipping Co., a
worldwide shipping company.
Eyewitnesses recount ship's
silent roll
Carson Rock, a ship's cook
from Barbados, dashed on deck of the Columbia as the
adjacent Stellamare tilted dangerously low toward the Hudson
River, at the Port of Albany. He'd sailed the world for 28
years, but he'd never seen anything like this.
Seventy-five yards away,
two of the Stellamare's cranes had lifted what looked to
Rock like an engine, the size of a railroad car, over the
middle of the ship.
When it got to the center,
said crew members on the Columbia, a 330-foot channel
dredger docked just south, the 289-foot Stellamare began to
roll slowly, almost silently, and turn away from the dock,
sinking on its side in the ice-choked waters of the Hudson
River.
The capsizing cargo ship
flung one man operating the crane into the water. He wore a
heavy orange jacket, but no flotation vest, crew mates said.
As the man gripped a chunk of wood in the river, the crane
operator clung to Stellamare's hull.
With one man in the water
and one clinging to the hull, the Columbia's crew raced into
action. Capt. Stephen Taylor called the tug Rhea I.
Bouchard, docked about 400 yards south, across the Hudson.
Mones, a mate from New Orleans, and another man grabbed a
litter used to retrieve men who fall overboard. Others leapt
from their own ship onto the docks and headed for the
Stellamare. Anyone trapped in the 32 water wouldn't have
much time.
"I don't think they had the
ballast set right," said Ron Cross, a welder and independent
contractor who'd helped detach the two giant General
Electric generators from a rail car that afternoon.
One generator was in the
hold when he ship rolled, Cross said. The other, slightly
heavier unit was on the ship's crane. The ship was big
enough to handle the cargo, he added, "but it's the smallest
ship I've seen here for a (load) that big."
Authorities will resume
their search for three missing crew members after a Dutch
cargo ship turned partly on its side on the Hudson River
while steel turbines were being loaded. Fifteen others were
rescued, with some suffering hypothermia.
Officials also said that
weight limits didn't appear to be exceeded, so another big
part of this operation is trying to find out exactly what
went wrong. |
