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Freighter sinks after collision in Seto Inland Sea; 2 missing

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seem to have been quite a few collisions of one sort and another lately, in that neck of the woods.... wonder why.

Nothing new. Read the maritime press, such as gCaptain or The Maritime Executive and you will see there is a steady drumbeat of fires, groundings, allisions, collisions (ships are said to "allide" with a stationary object and "collide" with another moving object) and sinkings. There was a big LNG tanker aground in the Suez Canal this past week along with a container ship with an engine room fire in the Panama Canal. A big MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) container ship is aground off Singapore.

Seeing as how the smaller ship in this collision rolled over pretty rapidly a high loss of life is not unexpected. I imagine the engine room crew never had a chance to escape.

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/video-japanese-cargo-ship-capsizes-and-sinks-after-collision

And then you have mysteries like this, a "fishing boat" in distress with no fish and no fishing gear. And it is Chinese. Hmmmm.

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/chinese-vessel-in-distress-attracts-help-and-suspicion

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Japan has an aweful track record of maritime accidents and failure to provide adequate assistance

Where do you come up with this stuff? Japan has the 9th or 10th best maritime safety record in the world along with one of the worlds most capable and copied coast guards.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Don't these large freighters have life boats? Even just one for the small number of crew members? The area where this happened is littered with islands.

Imagine if you can you are down in the engineering spaces working in that noisy environment far below deck level, or perhaps you are not on watch and asleep in you cabin and the ship is involved in a collision. Now you have to find your way to a weather deck, put the exposure suit on and get in a life boat. And oh yeah water is pouring into your ship. Maybe you make it out alive, maybe you do not. Sometimes the amount the ship is listing prevents launching one of the lifeboats. Newer ships have these sealed lifeboats that can be launched off the stern almost like a torpedo, but those are expensive and too large for a small cargo ship like this of barely 1,000 tons (the big container ships you see in most ports are upwards of 200,000 tons).

0 ( +1 / -1 )

seem to have been quite a few collisions of one sort and another lately, in that neck of the woods.... wonder why.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

The Seto Sea is very busy with ships.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

I wouldn’t like to have this happen at night, at freezing conditions. Must be hard for rescue staff. Heroes.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Don't these large freighters have life boats? Even just one for the small number of crew members? The area where this happened is littered with islands.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

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