# Hull Cracks & Oil Spills From El Faro’s 46 Year Old Sister Ship



## Geoff Gower (Sep 8, 2011)

Thursday morning, shortly after mooring in Oakland, the hull of the 1,727 TEU Matson containership S/S Matsonia cracked spilling heavy fuel oil into San Francisco Bay.
The vessel was built in 1973 by Sun Shipbuilding, one year before the doomed El Faro at the same shipyard using the same basic hull design. 
On Thursday the Matsonia’s crew, noticed a sheen surrounding the vessel around 8 a.m., initiated the vessel response plan and deployed an oil boom around the ship.
Divers soon discovered a fracture in the hull of the ship approximately 15-feet below the waterline adjacent to the starboard fuel tank.
On Friday Matson completed a transfer of the heavy fuel oil from the damaged tank to other fuel tanks throughout the ship to reduce the flow of leaking oil.
Coast Guard marine inspectors are scheduled to inspect the vessel and oversee repairs once the fuel tank has been deemed safe to enter.
The loss of the Matsonia’s sistership EL FARO, along with its 33 member crew, ranks as one of the worst maritime disasters in U.S. history, and resulted in the highest death toll from a U.S. commercial vessSince the Matsonia is older than the El Faro it is unclear why the US Coast Guard has allowed the ship to continue sailing considering, in his report on the El Faro investigation finding, the USCG Commandant Admiral Zukunft stated “these two factors (vessel age and ship type) were the leading risk indicators that resulted in the EL FARO being placed at the threshold for inclusion on the targeted vessel list.”
It is also not clear what caused the crack, if the ship’s structural issues were previously known to inspectors and why her hull conditions were not more closely monitored or scrapped after the El Faro findings. Nor is it clear why Matson has not followed several of the recommendations of the USCG and NTSB investigation reports including upgrading the Matsonia’s open lifeboats. 
Perhaps it is because the Commandant’s orders in the wake of the El Faro made those recommendations unclear and ambiguous. el sinking in almost 40 years.
* tanks to Gcaptain for article (


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

Thanks, Geoff.

It continues to astonish me that a vessel of this age can have been maintained adequately or can have had a major conversion without being treated as a new vessel in terms of scantlings and inspection. The costs of either being, I have to guess, utterly prohibitive.

I am not sure the federal sea scouts should not have been more of investigated than investigator.


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## Engine Serang (Oct 15, 2012)

M a g a.


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## TommyRob (Nov 14, 2010)

The template for US enquiries following this sort of incident has been long established. A) clear the regulatory authority, B) acknowledge that inspections are up to date and meet statutory requirements, C) bayonet the reputations of those at the sharp end trying to work with this pig's ear of an impossible situation.


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## Davesdream (Jun 24, 2009)

I find that statement a *"little out of date"*. 1. I have 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard and have retired from that service. 2. NO one in the Marine Safety Office has any intent to slow or hamper any ship in the Maritime Industry. 3. Memories tend to fade after many years, but I can recall numerous accidents involving ships registered in other countries that DID NOT maintain their ships only[_I] because the shipping companies profits came firs_t[/I], that leaked fuel oil or better yet ran aground. Many vessel's from ALL nations have been caught pumping bilges in the middle of the night thinking they could get away with it.

I would refer you to the online reference material provided by the U. S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Office. 

To me that is NOT a true sign of the Maritime Industry with such a deep history tied to world commerce.


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## Davesdream (Jun 24, 2009)

Here is an example of what I was referring too.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/accidentreports/pages/marine.aspx

Note the numbers pages......


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## Davesdream (Jun 24, 2009)

Worth a look.
https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Our-Organi...ns-standards-CG-5PS/Marine-Safety-Center-MSC/

No where in this is itstated to obstruct or deny maritime commerce....


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

Going to sea down in the basement steam ships 1960-1976 I found the USCG bent over backward to avoid tying up ships, as long as said ships met USCG rules in effect when the ship was built. Considering the vast improvements in lifeboats I am surprised the Unions did not demand new modern boats? Though I wonder how the El Faro crew would fair in these modern boats? That was one nasty storm. 

The quality of USCG inspections depended upon the expertise of the inspectors. I saw a lot of smart dedicated people and a few less so. On a T2 conversion, at a fall five year inspection, up on the dry dock. USCG sent a spring USCG Academy graduate while ABS a spring female East Coast state maritime school grad. Both of them were out of their element. At the end of the day when they said they were done and ready to sign off I got them in a corner and asked them to stay and wait until everyone else left.

2 A/E me got a couple heavy two-inch hex nuts from the machine shop and pulled up the fire room operating spot deck plates. I pitched those nuts out onto the deck beneath the boilers and said nut fell out of sight. I then took them down below and showed the other holes in the lower engine room overhead. I showed them the port side hull webs that were disguised with painted duct tape. I just took a screwdriver and stuck it through the webs. I showed them the concrete boxes around overboard piping port side hull in the lower engine room bilge.

Bottom line the port side engine room hull from aft of the fuel tank to nearly the stern, from the gunnel to the bilge keels including some new structural steel, needed to be replaced. Along with the boiler belly pan 'water-tight' deck.

I suggested those kids take the credit for finding this and keep me out of it they agreed.

Greg Hayden


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

Good for you, the surveyor should be the seafarers' and superintendents' friend, but my point is that one cannot maintain a cargo vessel against corrosion and natural fatigue to this age without prohibitive costs. The operative word is prohibitive. It was prohibited in all but statute and therefore cannot have been done.

She was also a conversion. I guess hoops were run in order to keep that within the confines of not treating her as a new vessel. If she was then the cost prohibition comes in again. Not done.

Here (Isle of Man) the marine administration simply refused to allow any 10 year old bulk carrier to join the register (they can continue if they have been under the same survey regime). Unfortunately the Register is not the Island's critical business. Imagine the pressures on administrations where they are significant bread winners.

There are three classes of vessel I regret not having had sea experience on: T2s, Morar (free piston gasifier gas turbines) and Inzhener Yermoshkin (combined steam and gas turbine). Mrs. Varley's little boy might still relish seeing the last of those but she would have been very, very upset to see him put foot on any bottom of the age that the others would be now.


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## George Bis (Mar 8, 2014)

Apparently in the US the Jones Act stipulates that every cargo carried between US ports must be carried by ships built,owned and crewed in the USA This makes new building very expensive. It seems that a cargo from say Germany to Alaska has to be landed at a mainland US port , then shipped onto Alaska. This is similar to the old Navigation Acts in the UK and it will be interesting to see if Brexit sees their return.


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

George Bis said:


> Apparently in the US the Jones Act stipulates that every cargo carried between US ports must be carried by ships built,owned and crewed in the USA This makes new building very expensive. It seems that a cargo from say Germany to Alaska has to be landed at a mainland US port , then shipped onto Alaska. This is similar to the old Navigation Acts in the UK and it will be interesting to see if Brexit sees their return.


re: a cargo from say Germany to Alaska has to be landed at a mainland US port, then shipped onto Alaska.

No a German Cargo can be carried direct to whatever US port.

Cargoes from for instance New York bound for Los Angeles need be on an American bottom. It is only cargoes that originate in a US port and delivered to a US port that require a US bottom.

My hometown of Duluth MN has become a hub for windmill tower parts built all over the world. Vessels of many different flags deliver the parts to Duluth. From whence they are trucked via US Interstate Highways to their final destinations in the US & Canada mid-west. Today, Sunday October 18, 2020, there are three foreign flag vessels in Duluth discharging windmill tower parts collected from up to seven other countries


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)




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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

I began working with personal computers in 1983 Radio-Shack-Trash-80-color-computer. The "hard-drive" was a Computer Cassette Recorder - attached: 1983-Hard-Drive.jpg, 20201018-Trash-80.jpg

1985 I paid just shy of $5,000 for an IBM PC. It had a MASSIVE Ten Megabytes HARD DRIVE - I wondered how I would ever fill it up - later I learned how. That 10MB drive was an $895 option. I had an Amdek 12-inch screen four colors monitor - $490. The software was named SMART by Innovative Software head-quarters Overland Park, Kansas and included a do***ent writer with email, a data-base, a spread sheet, a communications package and a graphics package. All integrated everything could easily be moved between applications. 

Attached: 20201018-IBMPC.jpg

Anyway when I noticed the outline of Duluth's aerial lift bridge on the BBC Song image I figured that it must be a FEP?

FEP = Foo-King-Electronic-Phenomena

Attached

20201018-Trash-80.jpg
20201018-IBMPC.jpg
1983-Hard-Drive.jpg
IBM-9-Pin-Dot-Matrix-Printer.jpg
IBM-9-Pin-Printer.jpg


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## YM-Mundrabilla (Mar 29, 2008)

kewl dude said:


> I began working with personal computers in 1983 Radio-Shack-Trash-80-color-computer. The "hard-drive" was a Computer Cassette Recorder - attached: 1983-Hard-Drive.jpg, 20201018-Trash-80.jpg
> 
> 1985 I paid just shy of $5,000 for an IBM PC. It had a MASSIVE Ten Megabytes HARD DRIVE - I wondered how I would ever fill it up - later I learned how. That 10MB drive was an $895 option. I had an Amdek 12-inch screen four colors monitor - $490. The software was named SMART by Innovative Software head-quarters Overland Park, Kansas and included a do***ent writer with email, a data-base, a spread sheet, a communications package and a graphics package. All integrated everything could easily be moved between applications.
> 
> ...


I have one of those IBM printers stashed somewhere. Goodness knows why? ?


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

I went up the road with 500 USD roll to RadioShack in Wilmington 78/79 (kindly given a lift by the lady customs expediter). I am sure by 1983 I had progressed to floppies but certainly my first TRS-80 used the cassette recorder. By the time we had returned to Geenock the mate (Davie Marshall) and I had a stability programme up and running. I continued with Tandy machines until Tandy's morphed away from the anorak's haven it had been for me. Oh to have bought shares at the same time!


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