Post by Administrator on Mar 28, 2021 18:08:59 GMT
BLOCKED SUEZ CANAL EVOKES MEMORIES OF THE “NEW WESTMINSTER CITY” STRANDING OFF PENARTH
The blocking of the Suez Canal by the massive container ship Ever Given (still stuck in the desert sand 5 days after running around in a sandstorm) has recalled memories of a similar incident off Penarth almost 50 years ago
In November 1972 the bulk freighter New Westminster City, of Cardiff’s Reardon Smith Line, was in the Wrach Channel off Penarth Head – heading for Cardiff under the command of a pilot when she ran into a patch of dense fog, veered off course – and ran aground.
In those days there was no red port-hand buoy to mark the landward side of the Wrach Channel – and, in any case, a low fogbank had made visibility very poor.
Tugs were unable to refloat the vessel immediately and she was left high and dry on the sandstone-rock bed . The enormous weight the vessel – including her cargo of timber – on the vessel’s double-bottom damaged the steel plating of her hull pushing it upwards by 10 inches
The New Westminster City had to undergo extensive repairs in dry-dock which involved physically splitting the vessel in two, removing several daaaged plates and welding the hull back together again.
A few months later a large oil tanker ran aground on the mud – just north of Penarth Pier.
As a result of these two incidents the red Penarth Head buoy was installed to improve the Wrach Channel marks.
LINK
The blocking of the Suez Canal by the massive container ship Ever Given (still stuck in the desert sand 5 days after running around in a sandstorm) has recalled memories of a similar incident off Penarth almost 50 years ago
In November 1972 the bulk freighter New Westminster City, of Cardiff’s Reardon Smith Line, was in the Wrach Channel off Penarth Head – heading for Cardiff under the command of a pilot when she ran into a patch of dense fog, veered off course – and ran aground.
In those days there was no red port-hand buoy to mark the landward side of the Wrach Channel – and, in any case, a low fogbank had made visibility very poor.
Tugs were unable to refloat the vessel immediately and she was left high and dry on the sandstone-rock bed . The enormous weight the vessel – including her cargo of timber – on the vessel’s double-bottom damaged the steel plating of her hull pushing it upwards by 10 inches
The New Westminster City had to undergo extensive repairs in dry-dock which involved physically splitting the vessel in two, removing several daaaged plates and welding the hull back together again.
A few months later a large oil tanker ran aground on the mud – just north of Penarth Pier.
As a result of these two incidents the red Penarth Head buoy was installed to improve the Wrach Channel marks.
LINK