Ushuaia grounded off Canada three years ago

David Osler - Friday 5 December 2008

The Ushuaia. pic; Reuters The Ushuaia. pic; Reuters
USHUAIA, the cruiseship grounded in the Antarctic last night with 122 passengers and crew on board, previously grounded off Canada little more than three years ago, according to the casualty records of Lloyd’s MIU. 

Moreover, official records state that the ship’s last port state control inspection showed up safety and pollution-related deficiencies. 

The intergovernmental online database http://www.equasis.org states that a 2005 inspection in St John’s, Canada, revealed problems with International Safety Management code compliance, lifesaving appliances, and annex one of the Maritime Pollution convention, which is related to oil. The total number of deficiencies was six. 

The last inspection recorded by equasis prior to that was in Hampton Roads in 2001, when the vessel was known as Malcolm Baldrige. Five deficiencies, in one case related to structural safety, are listed. 

Equasis added that statutory inspections are carried out by the International Register of Shipping, ranked as one of the two worst-performing recognised safety organisations in the world in the 2007 annual report of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding. 

The 1968-built, 2,923 gt Ushuaia grounded in Newfoundland in July 2005. After initial unsuccessful attempts to refloat the unit, it succeeded in refloating two days later, with no damage recorded. 

No one is thought to be injured in the latest incident, and contingency plans are being followed.
According to an Argentine naval officer, a nearby passenger ship is on its way to the Panamanian-flagged Ushuaia, which left the Argentine port in Tierra del Fuego on Sunday. 

“The aim is to get the passengers off as soon as possible and this they’re going to do with the Atlantic Dream, which will soon be arriving there,” Admiral Daniel Martin said. 

Adm Martin added that the ship is located some 186 miles southwest of Argentina’s Marambio military base on the Antarctic Peninsula, in a sheltered strait near Isla Bravante. 

Neighboring Chile, which like Argentina has an Antarctic territory, has offered to assist in rescue efforts.
The Chilean navy said in a statement that the crew on the stranded vessel had taken containment measures to prevent the fuel leak from polluting the sea. 

Tourism to the Antarctic region has increased five-fold since the early 1990s, as tens of thousands of people cruise during the southern hemisphere summer to see towering icebergs, seals, whales and penguins. 

A year ago, more than 150 crew and passengers, many of them elderly, escaped unhurt in a dramatic rescue after their cruiseship hit ice off Antarctica and sank. In that incident people were evacuated and sat in open lifeboats for several hours in freezing temperatures before they were picked up. According to the website of Ushuaia’s operator, a company trading as Antarpply, Ushuaia was originally built for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before being refurbished as a cruiseship.

 

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