Wonder if the bollards have been damaged or worse, ripped out, affecting future ship visits? Wonder if it was "just" the ropes breaking?
Hi Thomas,
Nautica's stern ropes parted at around 10am which caused her to spring out from the quay on her bow rope such that she ended up at 90deg to land.
The quay at Greenock Ocean Terminal is concrete faced therefore I would imagine the motion of the ship being blown onto the quay causes the waves /wash to rebound off the solid face and start a pendulum motion which quickly compounds therefore straining the mooring ropes - in this case the stern ones gave way. The mooring bollards (as far as I know) are fine - they will be rated for far higher loads that this I guess - given the size of vessel which ties up here on a regular basis plus Olsen's Black Watch is on the same berth today.
Tugs Anglegarth and Svitzer Milford arrived quickly and assisted her out into the middle of the river where an additional tug Ayton Cross arrived to assist her fleetmates. Eventually Nautica managed to get her anchor to hold and two tugs were stood down leaving Ayton Cross on standby in case of further issues. I don't know if she had a stern line on her or not.
There were approx. 450 pax and 26 crew ashore at the time who were looked after in Greenock Town Hall until the ship was assisted back onto the berth at around 2000 last night - the tugs were stood down shortly after.
She sailed for Belfast at around 2300.
A bit of action and adventure for her remaining pax yesterday!
A couple of photos of what couldn't be seen from shore taken by tug man Ron Fraser who was aboard Svitzer Milford yesterday, one of Nautica at 90deg to shore taken (ie facing up our street!!) from the Aldi car park next to Greenock Ocean Terminal by my other half Shelagh and a couple of the tugs assisting in the river are attached.
Whilst dramatic the best place for Nautica was out on the open river where there was space for her to move around without endangering herself or any surrounding vessels / structures.
I haven't heard of any injuries and the ship herself wasn't damaged either. Good on her crew yesterday - I'll bet the atmosphere was fraught at best on board!!
Finally and IMHO very very important to say is
massive respect to the tug crews yesterday - no one wants to be out in this weather.
My friend Jamie Shorthouse is Chief Engineer on Anglegarth (the one taking waves over her s'bd bulwark in photo 1) - I've yet to speak to him but hope to hear the story from his viewpoint soon.
Gav