Post by eshoremd on Feb 28, 2006 17:13:02 GMT -5
the history channel had a story on this shipwreck today at 5pm. this is where we mako fish off ocean city.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 12, 1983, an old ship was laboring in a winter gale, making little headway in the North Atlantic 30 miles off the coastal barrier islands of Virginia.
For hours, waves, some of them 35 feet high, smashed over the bow. Her five hatch covers were worn thin and crudely patched with putty and tape. Her deck was rusted and cracked. The pumping system to remove water from her holds was inoperative. A hole in her hull had been patched with a cement plug and the bottom of a coffee can. At 38, she was a nautical relic, twice the normal retirement age of the world's merchant vessels.
Aboard was a crew of 34 Americans. In her holds was 24,800 tons of coal. Her name was the Marine Electric, and her fate was sealed.
By any safety standard, the Marine Electric should not have been at sea. But she was, because government maritime policies had made it profitable for her to be there.
At position 37 degrees 53 minutes north, 74 degrees 46 minutes west in the pre-dawn darkness of 4:10 a.m., she jerked just a bit, then there came "the sound of the water going out of a bathtub, amplified a billion times." Her whistle screamed abandon ship. Crewmen jumped or fell through the frigid air into the icy water as she rolled over on her side.
When help came about two hours later, only two officers and one deckhand were still alive. Thirty-one men were dead, and the Marine Electric was lost.
The human cost of the government's chaotic maritime policies is perhaps best illustrated by the long, troubled history of the World War II-era class of T-2 tankers to which the Marine Electric belonged.
While other countries retired their fleet of T-2's in the 60's, the United States converted - "Jumboized" - the ships in order to carry more cargo.
The first warning that all was not right with the T-2s came Jan.16, 1943. At 3 p.m., the War Shipping Administration accepted a T-2 called the Schenectady after she completed her sea trials.
At 10:30 that night, without explanation, while tied up at the dock, in calm water and weather, the Schenectady simply broke in half.
Four months later, while leaving New York harbor, another T-2 - the Esso Manhattan - also split in two.
Those two sinkings marked the beginning of a long period of analysis of the T-2s and unsuccessful efforts to correct their problems.
Some theorized that "locked-in stresses" caused the sinkings. That theory was disproved. Then crack-arrestors were installed. But the T-2s continued to fall apart.
Despite the following U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation recommendation, T-2 tankers continued to be converted and carry cargo. "In the future the same conversion of another T-2 type tanker should not be approved. Further, it is recommended that no other conversion of this type vessel should be approved which deviates from the originally designed features for the carriage of normal petroleum products."
But those recomendations were rejected by the commandant of the Coast Guard. He said future conversions of T-2s should be considered on a ship-by- ship basis, not on the design characteristics of the class.
Until the sinking of the Marine Electric, no meaningful reforms came about in regard to T-2 tankers. Thanks the the courage of men like Chief Mate Bob Cusick and Marine Board Investigator Capt. Dominic Calicchio, T-2 tankers are no longer transporting cargo in United States.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 12, 1983, an old ship was laboring in a winter gale, making little headway in the North Atlantic 30 miles off the coastal barrier islands of Virginia.
For hours, waves, some of them 35 feet high, smashed over the bow. Her five hatch covers were worn thin and crudely patched with putty and tape. Her deck was rusted and cracked. The pumping system to remove water from her holds was inoperative. A hole in her hull had been patched with a cement plug and the bottom of a coffee can. At 38, she was a nautical relic, twice the normal retirement age of the world's merchant vessels.
Aboard was a crew of 34 Americans. In her holds was 24,800 tons of coal. Her name was the Marine Electric, and her fate was sealed.
By any safety standard, the Marine Electric should not have been at sea. But she was, because government maritime policies had made it profitable for her to be there.
At position 37 degrees 53 minutes north, 74 degrees 46 minutes west in the pre-dawn darkness of 4:10 a.m., she jerked just a bit, then there came "the sound of the water going out of a bathtub, amplified a billion times." Her whistle screamed abandon ship. Crewmen jumped or fell through the frigid air into the icy water as she rolled over on her side.
When help came about two hours later, only two officers and one deckhand were still alive. Thirty-one men were dead, and the Marine Electric was lost.
The human cost of the government's chaotic maritime policies is perhaps best illustrated by the long, troubled history of the World War II-era class of T-2 tankers to which the Marine Electric belonged.
While other countries retired their fleet of T-2's in the 60's, the United States converted - "Jumboized" - the ships in order to carry more cargo.
The first warning that all was not right with the T-2s came Jan.16, 1943. At 3 p.m., the War Shipping Administration accepted a T-2 called the Schenectady after she completed her sea trials.
At 10:30 that night, without explanation, while tied up at the dock, in calm water and weather, the Schenectady simply broke in half.
Four months later, while leaving New York harbor, another T-2 - the Esso Manhattan - also split in two.
Those two sinkings marked the beginning of a long period of analysis of the T-2s and unsuccessful efforts to correct their problems.
Some theorized that "locked-in stresses" caused the sinkings. That theory was disproved. Then crack-arrestors were installed. But the T-2s continued to fall apart.
Despite the following U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation recommendation, T-2 tankers continued to be converted and carry cargo. "In the future the same conversion of another T-2 type tanker should not be approved. Further, it is recommended that no other conversion of this type vessel should be approved which deviates from the originally designed features for the carriage of normal petroleum products."
But those recomendations were rejected by the commandant of the Coast Guard. He said future conversions of T-2s should be considered on a ship-by- ship basis, not on the design characteristics of the class.
Until the sinking of the Marine Electric, no meaningful reforms came about in regard to T-2 tankers. Thanks the the courage of men like Chief Mate Bob Cusick and Marine Board Investigator Capt. Dominic Calicchio, T-2 tankers are no longer transporting cargo in United States.
