MOL Comfort

The sister ship APL Poland

• APL Russia

Nippon Kaiji Kyokai

IMO no. 9358761

The container ship MOL Comfort was 2008 for the Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines ( MOL) built. It broke out on June 17, 2013 in the Arabian Sea apart, and both parts fell in the subsequent period. It is the largest container ship loss occurred.

Construction and deployment time

The MOL Comfort was one of a series of twelve ships of the same type, of which six units in the years 2007 and 2008 as MOL C-Class for the Tokyo shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines were built. Other sister ships were delivered to other shipping companies. After delivery in July 2008, the ship was set as APL Russia in charter of U.S. shipping company American President Lines in service. 1 June 2012, MOL took over the ship again and renamed it in MOL Comfort. The ship was used on the route between Asia and Europe and completed on May 29, 2013, the last "Special Survey" - one which takes place every five years study - by the Nippon Kaiji Kyokai classification society.

Accident in June 2013

On June 17, 2013, the MOL Comfort was on a voyage from Singapore to Jeddah in the Arabian Sea about 430 nautical miles southeast of Salalah in a bad weather area when it first showed strong dent in the midship area, soon buckled strong, and finally broke into two parts. The 26- member crew, which consisted of eleven Russians, Ukrainians and a 14 Filipinos, was able to save in two life rafts and a lifeboat and was included as part of the co-ordinated by the MRCC Mumbai bailout of the Yantian Express. Ship's officers and crew of the Yantian Express were awarded in late 2013 for their use of the GMRS with the Lifesaving Medal in silver.

Before the bow and stern of the damaged vessel initially retained their buoyancy and driven independently of each other with around two knots in a north-easterly direction. The bow was on position 13 ° 00'N 60 ° 40'E, 19 nautical miles east-northeast the stern of it. MOL entered into a salvage contract. On June 24 a companion ship from Jebel Ali and three tugs in the area of ​​drifting ship parts arrived. Experts from Smit International and Nippon Salvage took the two fuselage halves in inspection to prepare for the towing. In addition, were more salvage tug on the way to the damaged vessel. On June 26, began towing the forecastle in the direction of the Persian Gulf, the stern section sank on June 27, 2013 in the vicinity of position 14 ° 26'N; 066 ° 26'E in a water depth of about 4000 meters. It lost about 1,700 containers and about 1,500 tonnes of fuel oil sank by the stern. On July 6, broke during the drag on the rear part of the forecastle after Sohar, a fire that has not been brought by the escort vessels under control. In addition, the Indian fire-fighting ship Samudra Prahari participated in the fire fighting. On July 10, around 19 clock (UTC ) declined severely damaged the bow in position 19 ° 56'N; 065 ° 25'E in at this point about 3000 meters deep Indian Ocean. With the bow, the remaining 2,400 containers and about 1,600 metric tons of heavy oil went under. Individual containers were washed ashore in the aftermath of India's west coast and Lakshadweep.

Consequences of the accident

To 4382 containers were on board the insured with about 66 million U.S. dollars at Mitsui Sumitomo, Tokio Marine and Sompo ship ( 7041 TEU ) of cargo worth about 300 million U.S. dollars.

Because of the previously unexplained cause of the breaching of the MOL Comfort a joint investigation of the currently in drive sister ships MOL Creation, MOL Charisma, MOL Celebration, MOL Courage, MOL Competence and MOL commitment by the shipping company MOL, the shipyard Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and was Nippon Kaiji Kyokai classification society started. As a first measure, the vessels were studied during operation by the respective crews and set up a provisional plan to reduce hull stress. Later MOL decided to take all carrier-owned sister ships of the journey and to reinforce their hull. The ships MOL Celebration, Courage MOL and MOL Creation hulls were reinforced to mid-August, at the MOL Charisma and the MOL Competence Work is expected to be completed by early October. [ Deprecated] The MOL Commitment to follow in February 2014. [Deprecated ]

The accident investigation group of the classification society NK was the end of October 2013 interim results of the investigation. Due to the identified at the start of the accident flooding in the midship region of the ship's bottom, the Group expects a source of damage in the floor construction of the ship. In the investigation of the bottom portions of the sister ships were in the same range Beulschäden that come as cause for the failure of the floor construction in question, after which the sister ships in the said area were preemptively reinforced. In the interim report of December 2013, the accident investigation team announced that the cause of the midship damage by the finite element method could not be recreated in different simulations with the given parameters. The commission of inquiry assumes that lay the fuselage loads during the accident either higher than expected, or the preliminary damage by the Bodeneinbeulungen was higher than expected or have experienced a combination of the two aforementioned effects.

In February 2014 MOL sued the shipbuilder Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at the Tokyo District Court seeking damages for the subsequent amplification of the sister ships of the lower MOL Comfort.

Technology

The ships of the MOL C-Class are among the post-Panamax container ships. The ship's superstructure and the underlying engine room are located aft about four -fifths of the length. The ships of this class were compared to other 8000 - TEU vessels to a 40-foot Bay shorter and designed for wider by a row of containers. The total capacity is about 8100 TEUs, of which 3494 TEU in the holds and 4616 TEU can be stowed on deck. Late series units have a higher total capacity of 8450 TEUs. Connections are available for 630 refrigerated containers.

The main engine of the type used Mitsubishi Wärtsilä RT- flex96C acts directly on a fixed propeller, allowing a speed of up to 25.25 knots. To meet the current MARPOL regulations, all bunker tanks are located within the double hull.

Ship Structurally remarkable on type of ship built at Mitsubishi units was the first use of high-strength YP47 steel of the quality grade "E" ( YP460MPa ) with a tensile strength of approximately 461 N / mm ² for the hull. The new type of steel was developed by Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and tested their use in cooperation with Nippon Kaiji Kyokai of the classification society.