Cargo ship and tanker in collision at sea

Two ships with Orkney connections were at the centre of a major rescue operation at the weekend, following a collision between the Streamline chartered container ship Daroja and the fuel tanker Erin Wood.

At 5.10pm on Saturday Aberdeen Coastguard received a mayday call from the tanker, which had two crew on board, which had taken on water following a collision with the cargo vessel approximately two miles off Peterhead. No injuries to crew were reported.

Aberdeen Coastguard requested the launch of Peterhead Lifeboat and other vessels in the area offered assistance.

On arrival at the scene the RNLI found that the tanker had almost capsized. It had taken a large ingress of water through the wheelhouse, disabling all power and engines, which resulted in a severe list. The two crew of the tanker had launched a liferaft, in case they had to abandon ship.

A number of lifeboat crew were transferred to the tanker with a salvage pump to assist the crew of the tanker to pump out the engine room and the cabin of the tanker, in order to prevent capsize.

The Erin Wood – which has been a regular visitor to Kirkwall with fuel recently – was then taken under tow by the trawler Ocean Endeavour into Peterhead, while the cargo vessel also went into the port.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency attended to both vessels and an investigation is underway. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch was also informed.

Giving a statement on the incident this morning, Monday, Streamline Shipping managing director Gareth Crichton said: “Streamline was alerted to an incident at sea by the master of the chartered vessel MV Daroja at around 1745 on Saturday afternoon where he reported contact with another ship, which transpired to be a small fuel supply shuttle the Erin Wood.

“Both vessels made their way into Peterhead. Daroja was alongside overnight, whereupon, following MAIB review and survey of her condition she was cleared to sail north on Sunday, effectively delaying our schedule by 24 hours.”

He added: “We will be contacting customers this morning to apologise for the delay and making arrangements to get the vessel discharged and goods distributed as quickly as possible.  We await further information regarding the detail of the incident from the MAIB investigation together with any comment from the vessel owners.”