The last voyage of El Faro, When the cargo ship El Faro vanished with its 33 crewmen off the Bahamas, sailors around the world — bound by their complex relationship with a sea that they can love, hate or fear depending on the weather — felt their hearts crack. Perhaps none did so more than Gene Kelly, one of only three survivors of the last big American cargo ship disaster, the 1983 sinking of the Electric Marine, which took the lives of 31 of his crewmates.
But when the family of one of the El Faro crew held a memorial service near his little Massachusetts town last week, Kelly couldn’t bring himself to enter the church. “I got to the door and I had to turn away,” he told the Herald. “What could I possibly say to them? ‘I’m sorry your son didn’t survive, when I did?’”
In a week full of questions about the Oct. 1 disappearance of the El Faro, Kelly’s may have been the most poignant, but it was hardly the only one with no obvious answers. In an age when any teenager can load his cell phone with a weather-radar app, why would a veteran captain steer his ship directly into the teeth of a hurricane? Why didn’t it take evasive measures? What could have happened to the El Faro so suddenly that the crew had no time to send distress signals or, apparently, try to abandon ship?
And, most hauntingly, even though the answer may seem obvious to the rest of the world, the half-question, half-prayer from friends and family members of the El Faro crew: Could any of them still be alive, somewhere, somehow, waiting for rescue by searchers who’ve now been called off?
“He's always told me, I never give up, I never quit, I never fail, and I am holding on to that with every ounce of my being,” Emily Pusatere, the wife of the El Faro’s chief engineer Richard, told reporters when the Coast Guard ended the search Wednesday. Agreed Megan Rycraft, a licensed captain with 10 years at sea who had a friend aboard the El Faro: “I don’t think I’m ready to stop hoping.... These families are never gonna give up hope. Why would they? They shouldn't.”
Definitive answers about what happened to the El Faro after its last known communication — a distress call at 7:20 a.m. on Oct. 1, as the category 4 Hurricane Joaquin sped toward it — will have to await the search for the ship’s voyage data recorder, similar to the so-called black box carried by airliners, and the official investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Neither is likely to yield results any time soon; the voyage data recorder, bolted to the El Faro’s deck, is lost 15,000 feet under water, and the NTSB probe is expected to take 12 to 18 months.
But maritime experts are already identifying some key areas of concern about the ship and its maneuvers on its final voyage, as well as detailed opinions on what happened in the last moments before it disappeared.
OLD SHIPS NEVER DIE. BUT SHOULD THEY?
The El Faro was at the cutting edge of cargo-ship design and technology — that is, when it was built in 1975. Then named the Puerto Rico (and later the Northern Lights), it was among the first of the class of ships known as Ro/Ro vessels because they’re designed to allow vehicles to be driven directly onto the ship from port.
But that was four decades ago. Ships, like cars and airplanes, wear out over time. And although their technology can be updated, it’s more difficult to patch up the accumulated stress and fatigue suffered by their superstructure.
“I was surprised at the age of the vessel,” said Max Hardberger, a maritime lawyer and former freighter captain. “At 40, that’s twice its [expected] service life. There are not many [industry safety-standard monitors] that will approve a vessel of that age.”
One thing that may have kept the El Faro from the scrapyard was the law regulating the trade route it served, between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico. American law says that all seagoing trade between U.S. ports (known as “cabotage” in maritime jargon) must be served by American-built ships.
But there aren’t so many of those these days. High U.S. labor costs have moved the industry elsewhere. “All the ships are being made in China,” said Hardberger, a sharp critic of the law. “China is pumping them out. The quality is getting better and better and the U.S. just can’t compete.... So older [American] ships have to continue sailing.”
One area in which the El Faro clearly showed its age was in its lifeboats. Modern lifeboats are giant, totally enclosed orange pods that bristle with navigation equipment and are often said to be “unsinkable.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article38496843.html#storylink=cpy
But when the family of one of the El Faro crew held a memorial service near his little Massachusetts town last week, Kelly couldn’t bring himself to enter the church. “I got to the door and I had to turn away,” he told the Herald. “What could I possibly say to them? ‘I’m sorry your son didn’t survive, when I did?’”
In a week full of questions about the Oct. 1 disappearance of the El Faro, Kelly’s may have been the most poignant, but it was hardly the only one with no obvious answers. In an age when any teenager can load his cell phone with a weather-radar app, why would a veteran captain steer his ship directly into the teeth of a hurricane? Why didn’t it take evasive measures? What could have happened to the El Faro so suddenly that the crew had no time to send distress signals or, apparently, try to abandon ship?
And, most hauntingly, even though the answer may seem obvious to the rest of the world, the half-question, half-prayer from friends and family members of the El Faro crew: Could any of them still be alive, somewhere, somehow, waiting for rescue by searchers who’ve now been called off?
“He's always told me, I never give up, I never quit, I never fail, and I am holding on to that with every ounce of my being,” Emily Pusatere, the wife of the El Faro’s chief engineer Richard, told reporters when the Coast Guard ended the search Wednesday. Agreed Megan Rycraft, a licensed captain with 10 years at sea who had a friend aboard the El Faro: “I don’t think I’m ready to stop hoping.... These families are never gonna give up hope. Why would they? They shouldn't.”
Definitive answers about what happened to the El Faro after its last known communication — a distress call at 7:20 a.m. on Oct. 1, as the category 4 Hurricane Joaquin sped toward it — will have to await the search for the ship’s voyage data recorder, similar to the so-called black box carried by airliners, and the official investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Neither is likely to yield results any time soon; the voyage data recorder, bolted to the El Faro’s deck, is lost 15,000 feet under water, and the NTSB probe is expected to take 12 to 18 months.
But maritime experts are already identifying some key areas of concern about the ship and its maneuvers on its final voyage, as well as detailed opinions on what happened in the last moments before it disappeared.
OLD SHIPS NEVER DIE. BUT SHOULD THEY?
The El Faro was at the cutting edge of cargo-ship design and technology — that is, when it was built in 1975. Then named the Puerto Rico (and later the Northern Lights), it was among the first of the class of ships known as Ro/Ro vessels because they’re designed to allow vehicles to be driven directly onto the ship from port.
But that was four decades ago. Ships, like cars and airplanes, wear out over time. And although their technology can be updated, it’s more difficult to patch up the accumulated stress and fatigue suffered by their superstructure.
“I was surprised at the age of the vessel,” said Max Hardberger, a maritime lawyer and former freighter captain. “At 40, that’s twice its [expected] service life. There are not many [industry safety-standard monitors] that will approve a vessel of that age.”
One thing that may have kept the El Faro from the scrapyard was the law regulating the trade route it served, between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico. American law says that all seagoing trade between U.S. ports (known as “cabotage” in maritime jargon) must be served by American-built ships.
But there aren’t so many of those these days. High U.S. labor costs have moved the industry elsewhere. “All the ships are being made in China,” said Hardberger, a sharp critic of the law. “China is pumping them out. The quality is getting better and better and the U.S. just can’t compete.... So older [American] ships have to continue sailing.”
One area in which the El Faro clearly showed its age was in its lifeboats. Modern lifeboats are giant, totally enclosed orange pods that bristle with navigation equipment and are often said to be “unsinkable.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article38496843.html#storylink=cpy
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