ON THE WATERFRONT: Cargo ship’s history marked by rogue wave
By DAVID G. SELLARS (Published on Sun Oct 2nd, 2016)
The Astoria Bay, once known as Dry Beam, was once struck by a wave thought to be 50 feet high and was helped out by coast guards from both borders.
On Thursday, Alaskan Navigator moored to the Port of Port Angeles’ Terminal 1.
She is a 905-foot crude oil tanker that is owned by British Petroleum.
I understand she was in port to allow contractors to perform an inspection of her stern tubes and she was to leave Port Angeles on Saturday.
Astoria Bay
Astoria Bay moored to the Port of Port Angeles’ Terminal 3 on Wednesday.
She is a 610-foot long cargo ship that will be in port for about eight days taking on a load of logs that were harvested from Merrill & Ring’s private land holdings that will be shipped to China.
This vessel was once known as Dry Beam. In early 2012 while heading to the Far East with a load of logs, Dry Beam was hit by a rogue wave about 300 miles northwest of Vancouver Island.
The ship was struck on the port side by a wave thought to be about 50 feet high, causing a shift of the deck cargo toward the starboard side, which overloaded the stanchions that restrain the topside load.
The stanchions gave way under the additional strain of the shifted load, and a number of logs fell overboard while simultaneously destroying many of the stanchions.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy and the Canadian Coast Guard cutter JP Tully responded to the ship’s mayday call and escorted her to Ogden Point.
Barge cranes offloaded the remaining deck cargo and stowed it on the dock, and when the vessel was deemed seaworthy, she got underway for Kashima, Japan, where her remaining cargo was offloaded and repairs undertaken.
The logs that were moved off Dry Beam’s deck were subsequently moved to another location at Ogden Point and were ground up into chips for use as garden mulch.
Once Dry Beam was rebuilt, a new ownership group took possession of her, and they renamed the vessel Astoria Bay.
Rogue waves are not necessarily the biggest waves found on the water; rather they are unusually large waves for a given sea state.
Rogue waves do not have a singular defining cause, they tend to occur when high winds and strong currents merge to create an exceptionally large wave.
Platypus haul-outs
On Wednesday, Platypus Marine, the full-service shipyard, yacht repair facility and steel-boat manufacturer on Marine Drive in Port Angeles, hauled out Silverado and stowed her in the Commander Building.
She is a 120-foot fiberglass yacht that was built in 1974 by Willard Boat Works of Costa Mesa, Calif., for Harry See of the See’s Candies Inc. family.
At the time, she was the largest fiberglass yacht ever built.
During the eight weeks the yacht will be out of the water, personnel will be painting the bottom and attaching new zincs, and the mechanical department will install a pair of new generators.
Harbor happenings
On Monday, Tesoro Petroleum in Port Angeles Harbor provided bunkers to Alpha Melody, a 738-foot Grecian-flagged bulk cargo ship.
On Tuesday, Tesoro bunkered Noble Halo, a 623-foot cargo ship that is flagged in Panama.
On Saturday, Tesoro refueled British Renown, an 820-foot crude oil tanker that is flagged in the United Kingdom.
Today, Tesoro is scheduled to bunker Ross Sea, an 800-foot petroleum products carrier that is flagged in Singapore.
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Source: Peninsula Daily News
