Two mysterious shipwrecks and 23 men believed dead

Source: NZ Hearald

By: John Lichfield

New doubts were raised yesterday about the safety of shipping in the North Sea and the English Channel after two mysterious shipwrecks in which 23 sailors are believed to have died.

Three Filipino sailors drowned and 15 other sailors were missing yesterday after a freighter capsized in calm and shallow water near the island of Bjoroey just off the Norwegian coast.

Three sailors were rescued from the Norwegian-owned MS Rocknes late on Monday night after spending seven hours trapped inside the overturned hull.

Rescue teams cut a hole in the bottom of the ship to free the sailors who had succeeded in passing a series of increasingly desperate notes to emergency workers.

It also emerged yesterday that a French trawler which sank off the Cornish coast last Thursday had been rammed by an unknown freighter which failed to stop or send an SOS signal.

Five Breton trawlermen aboard the Bugalwed-Breizh, from Loctudy, near Quimper, are believed to have drowned.

French authorities plan to start a criminal investigation for manslaughter and intend to ask all European ports to search for a ship - believed to be a giant container-carrier - showing signs of collision damage on its bows.

The chairman of the Breton fishing committee, Andre Le Berre, said yesterday that the vessel which struck the trawler was manned by "thugs who don't deserve to be called sailors".

Dutch salvage experts yesterday pumped air into the hull of the Antiguan-registered MS Rocknes to keep it afloat while searches continued for missing sailors, possibly trapped inside the ship.

However, Harald Andersen, the local sheriff, said that the missing sailors were unlikely to have survived in water temperatures just above freezing.

"I think we have to be honest enough to say it would be a wonder if we found people alive in the ship under these conditions," he said. Shortly afterwards the search was called off.

The freighter, laden with rock and bound for Emden in Germany, capsized on Monday in a channel between Bjoroey and the Norwegian coast. There were 30 people, including a Norwegian pilot, aboard.

The owners, Jebsen Management, called for an inquiry into why the three-year-old ship should have tipped over in calm, shallow water only 200 metres from the shore.

Crewmen told the Bergens Tidende newspaper that the ship appeared to have struck the bottom or a shoal before capsizing.

Twelve people were rescued on Monday afternoon and three more on Monday night, when they were dragged through a hole cut in the ship's bottom.

In reply to a reassuring note from rescuers, one of the trapped Filipino crewman replied on a piece of paper in large blue letters, "Ok. But pls make fast. My coy (colleague) dieing (sic)."

"As the hours passed the notes got more and more dramatic," said Leif Linde of the Bergen Fire Department.

"In the end, we just had to cut through the hull."

French officials said that examination of the submerged wreckage of the Breton trawler by robot submarines had shown that it was crushed by a much larger vessel - not sunk in a storm as originally reported.

They said that it was possible that the crew of the freighter had not seen the collision but they must have heard the SOS call broadcast by the trawler before it sank.

The two ship-wrecks follow a series of serious incidents in the North Sea and Channel in recent years.

Just over a year ago another Norwegian cargo ship, the Tricolor, sank in heavy seas in the straits of Dover, carrying a Euros 30m cargo of luxury cars. The Tricolor collided in light mist with another cargo vessel.

All the mostly Filipino crew were rescued but the wreck impeded one of the world's busiest shipping lanes for months.

Another ship ran into the remains of the Tricolor two days after the original collision.