Sitting in a hotel in Lillehammer on a business trip and just found this:
Inquiry is under way as Endurance’s crew return home safely
Published Date:
06 January 2009
By Matt Jackson
They faced disaster in the South Atlantic as torrents of freezing water flooded into the engine room.
But now nearly all of the crew of Portsmouth ship HMS Endurance have made it home safely.Of the 143-strong ship’s company, 120 have flown back to the UK and only a skeleton crew are still with her.
Top brass have already started to investigate the cause of the flood on December 16.
Meanwhile the 6,000-ton vessel has been towed to the safety of the Falkland Islands.
She arrived there on Saturday from the port of Punta Arenas in Chile, where she had initially been towed.
The Antarctic patrol ship faced the threat of sinking when her engine room flooded, leaving her stranded without power in the icy waters of the Strait of Magellan in the far south of Chile.
But crew members carried out rapid flood-control duties they had learned at HMS Excellent on Whale Island in Portsmouth.
An MoD spokesman said: ‘The quick-thinking of the crew and their training stopped this serious incident escalating into something much worse.’
Meanwhile, the navy has moved to calm fears that the cost of repairing the damage could run into millions.
It had been reported that engineers thought the damage would cost as much as £150m.
But a navy spokesman said: ‘No final decision has been made about the repair work for Endurance so we don’t know where that figure would come from.
‘A survey team of naval and civilian personnel assessed the damage to HMS Endurance in Punta Arenas, and that has now been completed.
‘The water has been pumped out of the engine compartment, and the ship has arrived in the Falklands where we will be better-placed to make a decision about any repair work.
‘An investigation is under way to establish the cause of the incident, but the timespan for that is open-ended because we haven’t conducted the full survey yet.’
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/Inquiry-is-under-way-as.4844605.jp
Very bad news, anybody have more information about this?
By: Super Nimrod - 11th March 2009 at 20:13
Small update on this story including a picture of her being given a ride back to the UK.
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/Exclusive-Inside-the-Royal-Navy.5060219.jp
By: ollie oliver - 1st February 2009 at 18:22
Near Sinking due to Krill
The reason the Endurance almost foundered was due to her sea water filters becoming clogged with Marine life (Krill). To clear this obstruction the outboard valves are closed and the internal inspection hatches removed to facilitate the removal of the Krill. At the point of removal of the inspection hatch the outer valve failed allowing a free flood situation to occur. As the Endurance was constructed to civilian ship standards she didn’t have a second valve with remote out of compartment means to close it. Had she been a proper warship this scenario would not have come about.
By: Mpacha - 31st January 2009 at 23:04
She is alongside Mare Harbour and the damage is being assessed. After this all options will be considered and this is believed to include scrapping her.
She was 330 km’s west of Punta Arenas in the western access to the Straits of Magellan, heading for Valpararaiso, when the main engine room flooded and thus caused the main power to fail. A significant proportion of C Deck which is mainly cabin accommodation was also flooded and damaged.
The ship’s company seem confident that after a refit at Portsmouth which she was apparently due anyway, she will return to service.
By: christianmoche - 31st January 2009 at 20:26
any other information about this?
By: Super Nimrod - 7th January 2009 at 22:03
There has been a few posts on rumration about it. She was fllooded to the engineroom deckhead by all accounts and some reports suggest 40 degrees of list at one point and was very close to going down. No doubt the enquiry will establish the exact situation.
If you were the RN what would you do now, charter a replacement until she is fixed ? Indeed, can you even charter a decent icebreaker ?
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January 6, 2009 at 4:04 pm