MSC Flaminia on fire in mid-Atlantic

[penfold]

Seems to be a Reederei NSB managed ship. Not much info online though, just the MCA press release.

CONTAINER VESSEL ABANDONED MID ATLANTIC
Crew on board a container vessel were forced to abandon their ship after an explosion and subsequent fire in a cargo hold mid Atlantic.

Crew on board a container vessel were forced to abandon their ship after an explosion and subsequent fire in a cargo hold mid Atlantic.

At 10:07 Falmouth Coastguard received the relayed mayday broadcast from the German registered MSC Flaminia reporting that the crew on board had abandoned the vessel.

Falmouth Coastguard broadcast an alert to all vessels in the area and the nearest vessel which could provide assistance was the oil tanker DS Crown which immediately changed course to intercept the MSC Flaminia. Six other merchant vessels also proceeded to the location to help with the search and rescue operation but were more than six hours from the location. Rescue helicopters do not have the endurance required to attend an incident of this nature because the vessel is approximately 1,000 miles from land mid way between the UK and Canada.

DS Crown arrived on scene to confirm that the MSC Flaminia was still burning and recovered 24 people from a lifeboat and a liferaft. Four crew had suffered injuries. The injured crew have been transferred to the vessel MSC Stella which will take them to the Azores. One crew member is missing.


The MSC Flaminia is a large container vessel of 75,590 gross tonnage and had 25 people on board. Crew of the MSC Flaminia include German, Polish and Filipino nationals. Weather conditions on scene were winds force 3-4 with a one metre swell.

[GuinnessMan]

She seems to be run by some German firm called "NSB NIEDERELBE SCHIFFAHRTSGES". Hope they find the missing crewman...

[YoungMariner]

Sure thats not the owner? Might be one of the German KG funds, with tonnage tax benefits.

[GuinnessMan]

Sure thats not the owner? Might be one of the German KG funds, with tonnage tax benefits.

Nah, ISM and Ship manager according to Equasis...

[penfold]

Surely the owner is MSC? Or do they have ships not owned by them in their colours?

[tlloyd1983]

MSC have a hell of a lot of their ships chartered out, I would say the majority of their fleet are run by ship management companies. Which means that whilst the ship says 'MSC Whatever', MSC have merely chartered a container vessel to work on one of the lines they maintain, the ship is owned by the management company. Well, 99% of the time it isn't, it is owned by a shell company set up by financiers, who are the people who really put all these tubs on the water, especially true in the Bulk trade. Check the 'past names' on a lot of older container ships, and you will notice they have usually been chartered out to a fair few shipping lines:
2004 MSC Napoli
2001 CMA CGM Normandie

But whereas the name changes, the owner will often remain the same.

[GuinnessMan]

MSC have a hell of a lot of their ships chartered out, I would say the majority of their fleet are run by ship management companies. Which means that whilst the ship says 'MSC Whatever', MSC have merely chartered a container vessel to work on one of the lines they maintain, the ship is owned by the management company. Well, 99% of the time it isn't, it is owned by a shell company set up by financiers, who are the people who really put all these tubs on the water, especially true in the Bulk trade. Check the 'past names' on a lot of older container ships, and you will notice they have usually been chartered out to a fair few shipping lines:
2004 MSC Napoli
2001 CMA CGM Normandie

But whereas the name changes, the owner will often remain the same.

Close, the owner may not always be the same as the ISM Manager as a lot of owners prefer to use 3rd party managers. For a ship to be flagged by a certain company majority of the time they will need a company of some sort in that particular location, hence you will see an owning company sometimes known as "MSC Floaty Boaty" with a ship called "MSC Floaty Boaty" whilst the actual owner's may be based elsewhere. As an example, say a ship is owned by Maersk and is taken on a bareboat charter by Shell. It will have all Shell's logo's on it and be run by Northern Marine, but it still will belong to Maersk.

[tlloyd1983]

Close, the owner may not always be the same as the ISM Manager as a lot of owners prefer to use 3rd party managers. For a ship to be flagged by a certain company majority of the time they will need a company of some sort in that particular location, hence you will see an owning company sometimes known as "MSC Floaty Boaty" with a ship called "MSC Floaty Boaty" whilst the actual owner's may be based elsewhere. As an example, say a ship is owned by Maersk and is taken on a bareboat charter by Shell. It will have all Shell's logo's on it and be run by Northern Marine, but it still will belong to Maersk.

Yes this is what I was getting at.

Finance Company A, and Investment Bank B, want to invest some of the funds they have. Shipping, when the market is good, is a great return on investment. They set up shell company, 'Something Floaty Shipping' in some nice warm country with nice tax levels. They buy a container ship from ship builder 'Sturdy Ships', but what does a banker know about shipping? Nothing, so an agreement is made with 'Ship Managers Limited', who will run the ship, and take care of all the management, maintenance and legal side of things. So now we have 'Ship Hull XXXX' just about to be launched from ship yard, so 'Ship Managers Limited' will go to a container ship line, 'Easy Shipping Line', and say, I have a ship available, for this amount of money, for this amount of time. 'Easy Shipping Line' needs some extra capacity on one of the lines it runs, so agrees to charter out 'Ship Hull XXXX' for say 5 years. They give it a nice name, 'ESL Tokyo', and then it will carry cargo for 'Easy Shipping Line' for 5 years. After which time, 'Easy Shipping Line' then decides it is surplus to requirements, so 'Ship Managers Limited' offers it on the charter market again, and so on, and so forth.

Very basic but that is how it works roughly, so don't be surprised that even though it says 'Maersk Whatever', no one on board works for Maersk.

[penfold]

Ooh, it's too complicated; I'll stick to engines.

[GuinnessMan]

Ooh, it's too complicated; I'll stick to engines.

You ain't going to run them forever. Once you have a Mrs Penfold and a couple of little penfolds running around you might come ashore and you may need to know this...

[penfold]

Ah but deskflying jobs include being a supernintendo, which means I would get to do engines by phone. Not much in the way of smoke and mirrors needed.

[penfold]

News update

NORTH ATLANTIC.

1. DERELICT 300 METER M/V MSC FLAMINIA ON FIRE AND NUMEROUS CONTAINERS ADRIFT VICINITY 48? 13'N 027? 56'W AT 141600Z JUL.

[GuinnessMan]

News update

NORTH ATLANTIC.

1. DERELICT 300 METER M/V MSC FLAMINIA ON FIRE AND NUMEROUS CONTAINERS ADRIFT VICINITY 48? 13'N 027? 56'W AT 141600Z JUL.

Thats right deckies! Look out! Containers can make holes and sometimes give enough a dent for CoC if you hit them!

[penfold]

press release

MSC FLAMINIA

Buxtehude, July 19 2012 ( II )

Firefighting operations at the MSC FLAMINIA were resumed yesterday afternoon. Thanks to continuous cooling a further expansion of the fire could be prevented.

It can be observed that superstructure, engine room, the stern section and the forecastle of the ship have all not been affected by the second explosion.

According to the salvage captain the hull of the vessel is intact. Due to damaged cargo and extinguishing water a list of approximately 8-10 degrees has occurred.

The second tugboat ANGLIAN SOVEREIGN is expected this evening. The third tugboat will reach the site of the incident on Saturday at noon.

Salvage experts currently plan to board MSC FLAMINIA via the deployed emergency ladder and reactivate the firefighting systems.

Experts estimate that the firefighting operations could take some weeks. Afterwards, MSC FLAMINIA is supposed to be towed to Europe for repairs.

**********

Buxtehude, July 19 2012

18 crew and two passengers from the containership MSC FLAMINIA arrived safely at Falmouth/UK, onboard the oil tanker DS DRWON late yesterday evening. They were rescued after a fire had broken out onboard MSC FLAMINIA on July 14, 2012.

Crew and passengers were received by a team of Reederei NSB. They are unharmed and well given the circumstances. On completing all formalities and receiving aid and support during a rest period, they will spend the night at a hotel. They will begin repatriation, with the aim of rejoining their families as soon as possible.

Reederei NSB would like to thank the captain and crew of DS CROWN for the rescue and provision of aid to the crew and passengers of MSC FLAMINIA. During this dramatic rescue, they have shown extraordinary dedication and proven their excellent nautical skills.

[Ducki52]

Towed to Europe for repair? They can do wonderful things these days...