Latest news with #StenaImmaculate
STV News
4 days ago
- STV News
Container ship pictured leaving Scots harbour five months after fatal collision
A container ship, which was involved in a fatal maritime collision, has been pictured being towed out of Aberdeen harbour. The Solong collided with the anchored tanker Stena Immaculate about 12 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire on March 10, leaving one man missing, presumed dead. Thousands of plastic pellets, called nurdles, were released from ruptured containers on the Solong and began washing up on beaches on the Norfolk coast, where a clean-up operation is continuing. The vessel was towed to Aberdeen for safe berthing. It has since been pictured under tow, leaving the North East city's South Harbour with the final destination believed to be Ghent, Belgium. Doug Watson The MV Solong was taken to Aberdeen Harbour for safe berthing. A total of 36 people were rescued from the ships following the incident, but a sailor from the Solong – named as 38-year-old Filipino national Mark Angelo Pernia – is missing and presumed dead. The Solong's captain, Vladimir Motin, 59, of St Petersburg, Russia, appeared at Hull Magistrates' Court and at the Old Bailey, charged with gross negligence manslaughter and was remanded in custody. A Port of Aberdeen spokesperson said: 'Early on Saturday, August 9, the casualty vessel Solong left Crathes Quay in Port of Aberdeen's South Harbour and was clear of the navigational channel and Port District by 9.50am. 'MarineTraffic publicly lists the assisting tug Multratug 36's destination as Ghent, Belgium. We do not have any further information to share at this time.' Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
Telegraph
26-07-2025
- Telegraph
Sailors looking at smartphones blamed for surge in ship collisions
An increase in collisions at sea has been blamed on seafarers spending hours scrolling on their mobile phones and falling asleep when they should be keeping watch. Captain Andrew Moll, Britain's chief inspector of marine accidents, said the increased automation of shipping had rendered watch-keeping mind-numbingly dull and led crews to view the shifts as time for rest and relaxation, rather than a vital element of safety. To make matters worse, a requirement to appoint additional lookouts to aid watch-keepers is often ignored, while some sailors are even deactivating alarms that sound on a regular basis to ensure they are paying attention to computer screens. Work by the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (Maib), which scrutinises accidents involving British vessels worldwide and all incidents in UK territorial waters, said waning attention spans on the bridge have been linked with numerous recent disasters. Those include the collision between the container ship Solong and oil tanker Stena Immaculate off the mouth of the Humber on March 10. Capt Moll said the Solong, bound for Rotterdam from Grangemouth in Scotland, had been travelling in a straight line on autopilot for around 11 hours in poor visibility when it hit the tanker, killing one seaman and igniting a fire that took two days to extinguish. The Maib's interim report found that neither ship had a dedicated lookout and said further scrutiny will be given to their watch-keeping practices and 'fatigue management'. A collision between the British cargo vessel Scot Carrier and the barge Karin Høj, which killed two in 2024, happened after an officer on the former ship was distracted by the continual use of a tablet computer during his watch after earlier consuming alcohol, the Maib found. Capt Moll said: 'We're seeing more and more cases where a vessel has set off and a watch-keeper has turned up on the bridge, but they are not looking where the ship is going, and as a consequence it runs into something.' He said there was particular concern about the hundreds of coastal vessels plying crowded UK waters with only two watch-keepers on alternate six-hour shifts. Under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, each can work for 14 hours a day, five days a week. However, the Maib's research indicates that examples of crew falling asleep are just as prevalent on larger vessels with more officers to share watch-keeping duties. Capt Moll said that indicated a problem intrinsic to the changing nature of the role. 'Chronic boredom' He said: 'The job itself is not very exciting. If you went back 20 or 30 years, the watch-keeper had to rush around gathering information, and it was an active, busy thing. 'In the engine room they were looking at gauges and temperatures and on the bridge they were taking navigation fixes and plotting them on charts. 'That's now all being done by machines, which has taken away the engagement. Technically speaking, you're talking about chronic boredom and a job that suffers from qualitative and quantitative underload with the result that it lacks meaning and purpose.' In its annual report on marine safety the Maib said that 'humans do not make good monitors and if under-stimulated they will find other things to occupy themselves'. Capt Moll said that included listening to music, browsing the internet and making video calls. Other seafarers are essentially flipping their day, spending their breaks gaming and leaving them so exhausted that they fall asleep on the job when they return to the bridge. An early warning of the trend came in 2013 with a spectacular collision between the UK bulk carrier Seagate and the Timor Stream, a refrigerated-cargo ship, off the Dominican Republic. Both had been sailing through open water in good visibility yet crashed into each other, with the bow of the Timor Stream ploughing into the engine room and accommodation block of the Seagate, with sleeping crewmen miraculously escaping injury. The report said that neither watch-keeper had realised that the ships were on a collision course until less than a minute before the accident, blaming poor standards 'driven by complacency'. While vessels have multiple systems designed to maintain the attention of watch-keepers, those are often poorly understood or regarded as an irritation and deactivated, Capt Moll said. A Maib report on the collision between the freighter Scot Explorer and gas carrier Happy Falcon in the North Sea in 2023 found that the cargo ship's navigation aids were not being monitored, with its electric chart display system set to silent. Capt Moll said: 'You can have the equivalent of a dead-man's handle which if you don't set it every 15 minutes it will alert the whole ship, but that's being turned off. Navigational and radar alarms that tell you of an impending danger are being turned off or muted. 'So the watch-keepers aren't engaging with the systems and neither are they using the things that should force them to engage with the systems. That is a significant problem.' The ultimate solution, he said, may be to require manufacturers to modify warning systems and alarms so that they can never be disabled.
ITV News
04-06-2025
- Business
- ITV News
Tanks a lot: the shipping disaster providing months of meals for a Gorleston foodbank
Natalie Gray drops into food bank in Gorleston A stricken oil tanker, which was involved in a crash with a cargo ship in the North Sea, has come to the aid of a community food bank and kitchen. The Stena Immaculate was struck by the Portuguese-owned Solong off the coast of East Yorkshire in March, causing a massive fire and leaving one sailor missing, presumed dead. The Stena was later towed into the port of Great Yarmouth in April for repairs. Volunteers from the St Mary Magdalene Church food bank in Gorleston, Norfolk, say they were invited to the stricken tanker to collect frozen meat. Eight freezers packed with meat were salvaged, thought to be worth thousands of pounds. The Reverend Matthew Price, from St Mary Magdalene Church, said, 'It doesn't happen every day, it's extraordinary. It's going to make a massive difference to what happens here. "It was clearly a tragic accident, but for something good to come of that is really beautiful. "The Christian faith is all about good coming out of bad, resurrection, new life, and there's something of that I think in what we see here. "A terrible accident out in the sea has brought good to our community here in Gorleston." Chef Lottie Eaton at St Mary Magdalene Church said he couldn't believe it. "I got very excited because I'm very much a meat-eater," he said. "We went to the ship and literally filled the van as full as we could. There was just so much variety and range, it's not something we've been given before. "It's something good coming from something bad." The church believes the donation will keep their Tuesday lunch club going for several months.
BBC News
04-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Gorleston chef learns new meals after Stena Immaculate donation
The chef of a community food bank said she had to expand her skill set after receiving a huge donation of meat and fish from a stranded oil Bridge lunch club, run by the St Mary Magdalene Church in Gorleston, Norfolk, relies on donations to offer up to 60 people a three course meal each week. It was recently given a cubic metre of food including oxtail from the Stena Immaculate which was struck by a cargo vessel in March."I did get really excited at the thought of that meat. It is very expensive and it is not the sort of thing we get usually," said Lottie Eaton. "I have learnt how to butcher an oxtail myself."She tends to prepare her menus six weeks in advance, but is having to adapt her cooking and the dishes on she was a chef at the club, she used the service as a client. "I used to come and have my meals here. I suffered with anxiety so I used to hide in the kitchen a lot and I found it a safe space. Now I run the kitchen."It has changed my life. I have now got my family back - it's not something I would have dreamed of 10 years ago." The Stena Immaculate has resided at the port in Great Yarmouth since 11 April, where it was towed to be inspected. Community lead for the food bank, Anna Price, believes the food is worth hundreds if not thousands of pounds. "We took as much as we possibly could. There's big slabs of frozen chicken wings, boneless chicken, loads of beef," she explained."I had, in my freezer for a while, massive slabs of really good quality beef... the thing we didn't know how to use or get rid of were the oxtails - but we are learning."The 47-year-old said it was like "Christmas had come early" for chef Lottie. For the past four years, David Williamson has been coming to the lunch club. He said: "Half of my money went on my bills... I didn't have the money to afford to go shopping."[Stena Immaculate] are not wasting the food... everybody is from a low income and they can't afford to go out and have a proper meal. "It brings a tear to my eye... people can walk away and say they've had a nice meal today." Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Leader Live
30-05-2025
- Leader Live
Russian captain denies unlawful killing of crew member in North Sea collision
The Solong's master, Vladimir Motin, 59, of Primorsky, St Petersburg, is accused of the unlawful killing of crew member Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, in the collision off the East Yorkshire coast. On Friday, Motin appeared at the Old Bailey by videolink from HMP Hull for a plea hearing before Judge Mark Lucraft KC. Assisted by a Russian interpreter, Motin confirmed his identity before he pleaded not guilty to a single charge of the manslaughter of Filipino national Mr Pernia on March 10. Judge Lucraft set a further hearing on September 10 ahead of the defendant's trial on January 12 2026. Motin was charged over Mr Pernia's death after his vessel collided with the American tanker Stena Immaculate near the Humber Estuary on March 10. All 23 people on the tanker were rescued along with 13 crew from the Solong, but Mr Pernia could not be located. Mr Pernia was working in the forward deck of the Solong, in an area where there was an explosion. The collision happened at about 9.47am at 10.2 nautical miles from the nearest point on the coast, a previous hearing was told. The 140m-long Solong is Portuguese-registered and was carrying about 157 containers. The Stena Immaculate is 183m long and was carrying jet fuel. It anchored at the point of the collision about 15 hours before the impact. The Solong was travelling at about 15 knots when it hit the port side of the other vessel.
