Death of a Supertanker (14 page)

The chief engineer had been gone for more than ten minutes when he called the wheelhouse by R/T. ‘The fractures and buckling along the welds are opening and extending, Captain.’ McLintoch’s urgent voice was almost drowned by the sounds of the storm, but someone near him could be heard to say, ‘Christ! Look at that.’

‘Flood then, Chief. Flood right away.’

‘Aye, Captain. I’ll do that.’

The Captain called out, ‘Mr Foley, tell the radio officer to inform Cape Town and the sea rescue station at Gordons Bay that the after part of the ship threatens to break away from the hull. We are flooding the engineroom in order to anchor the stern section if the break occurs.’ The Captain hesitated. ‘Tell them we require immediate assistance. A tug or rescue craft to stand by. We know there’s little they can do in this weather so close inshore, but we’d appreciate the moral support and –’ The Captain hesitated again. ‘That’s enough. They’ll know what I mean.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Foley, whose pulse rate had risen appreciably, passed the message. Feeny repeated it, adding, ‘I’ll get that off right away.’ By the time Foley had replaced the handset the Captain was talking into the ship’s broadcast system.

‘Pay attention. This is the Captain speaking. Pay attention. It is possible that a break will occur in the hull between numbers seven and eight tanks. Small fractures have appeared there.’ The Captain’s voice was calm and measured; no trace of anxiety, no hastening of speech, no slurring of words. ‘We are flooding the engineroom as a precautionary measure and to ensure stability if the after part of the ship breaks away. The flooding should make it possible for the stern to settle on a more or less even keel with the after superstructure well above water. The auxiliary diesel will supply power for lighting and communications once flooding shuts off our main supply.’ The Captain paused. ‘There is no cause for alarm. Passengers and stewards are to assemble in the bar-lounge and remain there until further notice. Crewmen not
already assigned to special duties must assemble in the recreation room and remain there until further notice.’ The Captain stopped, cleared his throat, then began to speak again, very slowly and deliberately. ‘We are in touch with the authorities ashore. They will no doubt be taking action to assist us. I will see that you are kept fully informed. You can help me – and
yourselves
– by keeping calm and in this way setting an example to others. That is all.’

The Captain did not tell them that the barometer showed no signs of rising, that the force of the wind was, if anything, increasing. Nor had he explained that there was no point in sending them to emergency stations since no boat could be lowered in that weather. And he had not told them of his grave doubts about the after part remaining stable if it broke away. The flooding would take time and he doubted if they had much time available. Finally he had not told them that rescue services, sea or air, could not possibly operate under the conditions prevailing. Negative information could not help morale.

He replaced the handmike. ‘Mr Foley. Get me the light-keeper on VHF. I’ll bring him up to date.’ Crutchley knew it would not’ help, but it was something which had to be done. He looked at the flashing light just on a mile away. There were men and women in that little community, safe and secure, the gale no more to them than a boisterous disturbance of wind and water. Many of them would be in their beds, snug and warm; some, no doubt, would be watching the lights of
Ocean
Mammoth
, wondering what was going on in the supertanker, how those on board were standing up to the disaster. It was strange, he reflected, that a mile could mean so much in terms of safety and danger.

As the Captain’s broadcast finished Abu Seku, busy with Gareth Lloyd easing nuts on the seawater circulating casing, let go a hollow laugh. ‘The Old Man sure has a great script writer.’

‘Indeed he has,’ said the Welshman. ‘I liked very much the bit about “the shore authorities will no doubt be taking action to assist us”. That really got me. For Christ’s sake, Abu, what can they do in a full gale?’

‘You got him wrong, man. He didn’t say
what
action. Jesus, this nut’s tight. A tough bastard. They’ll be taking action all right, Gareth. Plenty of it in the pubs and clubs tonight.’ The
Ghanaian cackled merrily. ‘Woosh! whoof! This goddam nut won’t shift anyway. It don’t want to flood the ship, man.’

When he went to the engineroom to supervise the flooding, Mr McLintoch left Malim with a crewman at the site of the fracturing welds and buckling plates.

Foley, looking down from the bridge, could see the two men crouching fifty feet below him, their backs braced against the pipelines to starboard of the catwalk. Their hard hats and
oilskins,
dripping with water, reflected the light from the signal lamp. From time to time they ducked as clouds of spray swept over them. In spite of the signal lamp they were still using torches and looking down on deck where the beams were focused he thought he saw the buckling, along it a spidery crack, and he shivered involuntarily. At that moment Malim’s voice came through on the bridge R/T. ‘Wheelhouse! Wheelhouse!’ He was shouting to make himself heard. ‘The plating is buckling and opening. There’s a fracture along a line of welds above the transverse bulkheads between seven and eight tanks. We can hear metal straining and breaking in seven.’ The third engineer’s hoarse shouting conveyed his fear. He went on. ‘The break runs from the starboard side, across to amidships where it disappears under the pipelines. Probably stops at the centreline bulkhead. Some of the pipeline brackets are beginning to buckle. Not safe here any longer. We’re going up to the walkway on the foreside of the housing. Okay?’

‘Do that, Mr Malim,’ said Captain Crutchley. ‘And be smart about it.’ With remarkable speed for such a big man, he moved to a telephone and called the engine control-room.

In the wheelhouse the Captain and the chief engineer were discussing the crisis.

‘The after part of the ship is breaking away from the hull along the transverse bulkheads between seven and eight tanks,’ said Mr McLintoch. ‘The fractures and buckling have continued past the centreline bulkheads. Aye, and to starboard the break on the maindeck and down the ship’s side is opening. It’s the stresses imposed by wind and sea and tide. Compounded, you see.’ As he spoke the sound of plates and frames buckling and parting, sometimes a shrill complaining squeal, at others a subdued
rumble, could be heard above the noise of the storm.

The Captain was silent. Too many things were happening. There were too many distractions. He must concentrate, he told himself. Should he sound emergency stations, get everybody up on deck, or would it be better to have them under cover on Deck One, just one level below the bridge? As a result of the flooding, steam had been lost on both boilers and the auxiliary generator was now supplying electric power. The throb of the 2500 BHP diesel, situated high up in the engineroom and well above the flooding level, was becoming a familiar background noise in the housing aft.

What made the problem so difficult, he explained to the chief engineer, was uncertainty as to how the after part of the ship – the stern section, about a fifth of her total length – would behave if it were still buoyant when the break came. The chief officer had fed the relevant information into the cargo loading computer – including estimates of the tonnage of floodwater in the engine-room – and reported that it should be reasonably stable. Captain Crutchley and Mr McLintoch were, however, by no means sure. There were too many imponderables: the effect of gale force winds and seas on the high superstructure if it were afloat on its own; the list which would develop since the engineroom was not subdivided into watertight compartments and floodwater would flow to the lower side. Once the stern lost buoyancy and sank the nature of the sea bottom would be important. If it were level the after part would settle evenly; if it shelved steeply or there were rock ledges there would be problems. Finally, if the break occurred while there was positive buoyancy the stern would drift before the gale and defeat the object of the flooding which was to get it aground on an even keel as soon as possible.

‘If I get everybody up on deck,’ said the Captain, ‘they’ll be exposed to the gale and God knows whaťll happen to them if the after part floats free and takes a heavy list.’

‘Aye, it’s a terrible problem, Captain. Maybe better to get them up to Deck One. They’ll be higher up then and …’ Mr McLintoch shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands in a gesture of desperation. ‘Well, if the worst comes to the worst, they’ll be able to come up the stairway to the bridge deck. The Lord knows it won’t help them in this weather, but at least they won’t feel trapped like drowning rats.’

Mr McLintoch, who came from Glasgow, pronounced it
‘tr-r-apped like dr-r-ooning r-rats’ which made the prospect seem even more dreadful to Alan Simpson who was in the shadows on the far side of the wheelhouse.

In the semi-darkness the Captain’s face was drawn, the red-rimmed eyes behind the dark glasses more than usually inflamed. ‘I don’t think it’ll come to the worst, Chief,’ he said, believing it probably would but conscious of the need to stiffen morale. ‘Nevertheless, we’ll bring them up to Deck One. They can assemble in my office and dayroom.’

‘And in mine, Captain.’

Crutchley nodded. ‘Yes, of course. That will help.’

‘Any news from the shore?’

‘A sea-going tug left Cape Town at one o’clock this morning. In this weather she’ll need all of twelve to fourteen hours to get here. Gordons Bay is sending a rescue launch. ETA between ten and eleven in the forenoon. And the South African Navy is diverting a frigate. It’s on passage from East London to Simons-town. May be here soon after daylight, they say.’

‘Thank the Lord for that,’ said Mr McLintoch. ‘They won’t be able to do anything in this gale, but it’ll be good to see them. What about helicopters?’

‘The weather’s too much for them just now, but when it shows signs of moderating they’ll no doubt be along. It’s the best way to get men off a ship.’

‘Aye, it is. And women.’ Mr McLintoch was a stickler for detail.

Captain Crutchley moved along the console. ‘Right, Chief. I’ll do that broadcast now.’

The chief engineer took the hint and made for the engineroom.

Shortly before two o’clock in the morning, when it seemed the gale could do no more, its severity increased. The wind shrieked and screamed and incoming seas hurled themselves against the ship with unbelievable ferocity. Flashes of lightning revealed a foaming maelstrom, the wind snatching wave crests into flying spray so dense that despite mechanical wipers it was often impossible to see through the wheelhouse windows.

Foley was reporting that the anemometer had recorded a wind speed of 102 mph, when the after superstructure shook convulsively. There was a loud rending noise, a screech of steel, as plating and frames on deck and in the tanks below gave way,
followed by the dull boom of an explosion and a flash of light which temporarily blinded those in the wheelhouse. The explosion seemed to have taken place at the point where the bridgehouse met the maindeck. The stern section wobbled as if a giant hand had pushed it off balance, before listing over to port.

Captain Crutchley, wedged into the gap in the console which housed the compass binnacle, shouted, ‘Hold on as best you can. She’s broken away.’ As he reached over and grabbed the
hand-mike
of the ship’s broadcast system, the wheelhouse lights flickered and went out. He pressed the ‘speak’ button but the mike was dead. All power had gone.

‘Mr Simpson,’ he shouted. ‘Take a torch, double down to Deck One and get everybody up on to the starboard side of the bridge deck.’

When Simpson had gone the Captain tried to speak to the engine control-room by voicepipe. There was no reply and he assumed the engineroom had been evacuated. The list had increased to thirty degrees and from the staggering motion of the stern it was evident that the after part of the ship was drifting down wind away from the stranded forepart. The whole stern section carrying the accommodation housing, the engineroom, the funnel, the bridge, the very heart of the ship, was now a separate unit; a huge unwieldy structure with a beam of 190 feet and a length of 230 feet. It was listing heavily to port and was down by the bows – if the jagged stub of deck over the compartments and bulkheads which made up number eight tank could be called a bow.

The Captain suspected that the explosion had taken place in the pumproom. The pumpman had been there doing a last-minute check that pipe and gas line valves were shut when it was clear that a break was likely. Crutchley had tried to communicate with the pumproom but the phones there and in the cargo control-room were out of action and there was no response to calls on voicepipes and R/T.

From the violence of the explosion and the bows down trim of the after part, he concluded that fore and aft and athwartship bulkheads in the vicinity of the pumproom had collapsed and extensive flooding was taking place. He derived grim satisfaction from this because the sooner the stern sank and found bottom in shallow water the better. If it remained afloat for any length of time it would drift into deep water. With the wind blowing a full
gale it wouldn’t take long for that to happen, and it would be disastrous.

The absence of the chief officer was something which nagged at the Captain. Where was the man, he kept asking himself, hoping that Jarrett had not been in the control-room or with the pumpman. He badly needed the chief officer to take charge of the crewmen and passengers who would be coming up to the bridge deck. Crutchley had no doubt they would need a strong hand to control them. There was certain to have been a great deal of alarm – even panic – over the last few minutes.

The third officer made his way through the chartroom towards the stairway to Deck One. He didn’t relish the task the Captain had assigned him. Even with a torch it was frightening in the dark, and with the stern so heavily listed, its movements so haphazard, a sickening unrhythmic lunging and rolling, it was difficult to keep one’s feet. He could hear the wind shrieking and feel the seas buffeting the after part, very close at hand they seemed now. He had a vivid mental picture of what the remnants of the
bulkheads
to number eight tank must look like and he was terrified not only by that and by what was happening, but by the possibility that he would betray his fear. With these thoughts in mind he reached the top of the stairway and started down it when he was almost swept off his feet by a rush of men coming up. A torch flashed from the bottom of the stairs behind them and he heard Jarrett’s shout, ‘Carry on to the starboard side of the bridge deck. Hold on there until we know what’s happening. Don’t panic. It won’t help. Figureido will look after you for the time being. I’m going back to see how things are with the engineers.’