Boatnerd Discussion Forum

I wasn't aware that they had found the North American. Any pictures or reports on how the wreck looks like today?

Too bad that the cabins could not be taken ashore ala Bass Island and made into something useful as a home of sorts. As far as the forward cabins are concerned, are they pretty much as they were when she sailed or is everythig of use already stripped out?

John van der Doe wrote:To make the wreck seaworthy again is almost impossible, unless you cut the hull in two sections, engine room part (after body) and fore body, ...

What nobody knows at this point is the condition of her bottom. Her forebody appears fairly well intact above the waterline, but who knows what the rocks have done under the water? I wouldn't be surprised to find that her entire bottom has been seriously compromised, in which case the bulkheads would be superfluous in keeping any part of her afloat.

It will certainly be an interesting salvage to keep tabs on and see what ultimately becomes of her.

The foreign cutting torch is out of the question I think.
To make the wreck seaworthy again is almost impossible, unless you cut the hull in two sections, engine room part (after body) and fore body, but the you have to strengthen the bulkheads.
Than the question arises, is that possible on a place as where the ship is positioned, let alone the cost.
I think she will end her live where she is.

John.

Just how close could a decent-sized crane barge get to her, without being in danger of the same fate? I mean - Is it feasible for her to be cut into large pieces and hauled out? Perhaps they could just remove the engines and any other source of pollutants and let her remain where she is. I feel that would be far better than falling to the cutter's torch in a foreign land so far from home.

Slip wrote:Didn't they find either the North or South American sunk somewhere in this general area?. Memory seems to lapse, how about some help.

The North American sank in 400 feet of water on September 13, 1967 while in tow of the tugs Michael McAllister and America, 25 miles NE of Nantucket Light. Exact position is indicated to be 40.46 N by 68.53 W.

Didn't they find either the North or South American sunk somewhere in this general area?

Pretty well in three, maybe four pieces soon , with her back broken and her bottom undoubtly shattered . But better there than a sunken wreck offshore , and hopefully the salvage process will be undertaken with precision and decisiveness not shown so far .

Once that steel starts being removed , the local lobster fishermen fears should subside a bit . Just residual oils to worry about now , and the bits of oily waste that may still be in the nooks and crannies of the engine room bilges . Most of that will be washed away , with very little on the shore or beaches locally . The ballast tank sludge will be removed by tidal action , and I feel that lobster bed disruption should be at a minimum .

Looks like a Svitzer tug with a barge in the background but not sure , anyone know ?

Awesome pictures. Guess all our questions are answered. Would a "new" ship w/ no rust have fared any better?. If she hadn't broke loose would she have made it across the ocean.?

Take a look at these three recent shots; she won't be floating anywhere but in pieces on a barge.

The Canadian Press
Published On Mon Oct 10 2011

SCATARIE ISLAND, N.S.—The Canadian Coast Guard says the remaining oily waste water has been removed from a badly damaged bulk carrier stranded off Cape Breton.

The coast guard declined a request for an interview but sent an email Monday saying that all tanks on the MV Miner have been examined and emptied.

Joe LeClair, superintendent of environmental response for the coast guard, said in an emailed statement that there are some oily sheens inside the engine room, but they are being contained by booms.

LeClair’s statement said about 10,000 litres of marine diesel fuel, lubricants and oily waste water have been removed from the vessel.

The ship, which once carried coal, ore and grain on the Great Lakes, was on its way from Montreal to Turkey to be scrapped when it ran into trouble. The MV Miner broke free while being towed last month and ran aground off Scatarie Island, a provincially designated wilderness management area.

There have been repeated attempts to free the 230-metre aging bulk carrier, but the vessel won’t budge.

The emailed statement from the Coast Guard said the vessel remains largely intact, but there are several large openings on the starboard side.

CBC News Posted: Oct 10, 2011 3:29 PM

A lobster fisherman in Nova Scotia is warning that a gash in the side of a grounded bulk carrier is now a major hole, but the coast guard says there is no threat to the environment.

The damaged MV Miner has been sitting near Scatarie Island off Cape Breton for three weeks. The Canadian Coast Guard has been monitoring the ship from the mainland.

But Ken Wadden, a local fisherman, went to check out the ship for himself on Sunday.

"The whole side of the ship is gone, completely gone," he told CBC News on Monday. "You only got to get another wind like we had the other day and the whole side is tore off the front."

Wadden said the ship seems to be intact above the waterline, but below, there's not much left.

"You can smell oil off the boat when you're getting close to her. And with the crack that's into her, that boat is not going nowhere," he said.

Wadden expects it will be quite an endeavour to move the Miner.

"You would not believe your eyes. And you expect that thing to float! She's about 40 feet high. Just think about it in your own mind — a house stood up on end, 40 feet, and there's not a bit of plate on it from the top to the bottom," he said.

Randy S wrote:

Slip wrote:I agree with you. The more I look at the picture the more I seem to see that the stern doesn't seem to be in correct alignment, either side to side or heighthwise with the bow. Pretty tough to really see. A overhead or low side picture would be better.

I noticed that too - it appears that she has a slight bend to port, right about where the hatch crane sits

Ok, although not scientific nor guaranteed to be accurate, I copied the photo and enlarged it. I then pasted it to a spreadsheet and used the program's "draw" feature to draw a line on each side of the deck, from cabin-to-cabin. It appears that the hull is still straight fore to aft, and the only top-to-bottom deformation seems to be a bit of hogging, just aft of mid-ship.

fireman12 wrote:What surprised me was the way the engine room got holed , although that could have initially been from the rocks and the storm . With subsequent worse damage from wave action . Her steel down below was pretty good inside , as she was kept painted down to the bilge tank tops . But the days of keeping lakers` hulls well painted outside has long gone by the wayside , as the evidence was pretty plain while the Miner lay in Toronto , waiting for this day to come .

It;s probably not all that surprising, when you think about it. Even with the ship light like that, the stern is still lower in the water than the bow, so if whe did come in broadside or close to it, it is likely that the plating under the E/R would have been the first bit to touch bottom. Anyone who has studied ship's stability has to know something of drydocking stresses and the critical period, the moment when only the stern of the vessel is coming to rest on the blocks. A lot of planning, correct placing of blocks, based on the vessels drydock plan, and trimming of a vessel is done before entering a dock to ensure that the critical period is as short and the stresses on the vessl are minimized. An unplanned even like grounding could have put all that force on an unre-enforced section of plating, or just an understrength area, and just stressed it beyond its limit

While the condition of the Miner's diesels and their appetite for pricey fuel have been cited as causes of her retirement, I was told back in 2002 by someone very close to the situation that she was scheduled for extensive steel work that year. The objective, I was told, was to get her through one more five-year survey. It was no surprise, then, to see her retired at the end of 2008.

All that time in salt water is tough on ships like the Miner that spend their careers in that trade.

Replying to Andy P. and in general to the topic , I`ve been inside the Miner`s side and double bottom tanks , to perform ballast lines joints repairs , and that was many years ago . Even then the cargo hold tank side and ship side , and tank tops steel , was in very corrosive condition . With big sheet like pieces just peeling off the sides , and the bottom of the tanks were a mix of mud , and dissolved rust .

Sure some of it was repaired since then , to pass each due 5 year inspection . But once the Miner ended up where she did , the forces acting on the hull , and the wore out ballast tanks steel , just found the weakest point , and opened her up like a rusty sardine can .

What surprised me was the way the engine room got holed , although that could have initially been from the rocks and the storm . With subsequent worse damage from wave action . Her steel down below was pretty good inside , as she was kept painted down to the bilge tank tops . But the days of keeping lakers` hulls well painted outside has long gone by the wayside , as the evidence was pretty plain while the Miner lay in Toronto , waiting for this day to come .

Look closer at photo below . They are still there between no`s 10 & 11 hatches .

John B wrote:I notice that the two lifeboats, that were shown in earlier pictures lashed to one of the hatches, are gone. I wonder if they were lashed to that hatch and secondly if they had a roll in the failure of the missing hatch?

The life boats are still on the boat. They were not lashed to a hatch cover. They are lashed to the deck between hatches 10 and 11. (see pic).

I notice that the two lifeboats, that were shown in earlier pictures lashed to one of the hatches, are gone. I wonder if they were lashed to that hatch and secondly if they had a roll in the failure of the missing hatch?

ML wrote:Pressure point(rocks) on the keel from the constant up and down pounding is the culprit IMO. That cargo hold was sealed airtight for a reason. All the vents were closed, all the hatches sealed, virtually airtight for the run across the pond. Once the heaving and constant pounding started at that particular point the air had to go somewhere it did. It blew off the hatch and blew out the ship side. Look at the piece of the hull that looks as if it is blown outward. Basically an explosion of sorts. My take on it anyways.

There would have to be significant deformation of a space as big as a cargo hold in order to create the pressure needed to explode a hatch cover and the ship's like that, with air alone. All that sealing job was strictly to keep the ship "weather tight," in other words, wave action over the deck, or spray would show minimal ingress into the holds.There is a big difference in Classification Society definitions of weather tight and water tight.
As for the ship side, water acting on a crack (coupled with the stress and action of the ship aground) could have caused it to spread both vertically and horizontally at the same time, until the water action on the steel plate became too much for the old welds and it would have basically acted like a hinged door. I've seen water peel back steel plate like it was paper.
Chances are that the inner hull was in poorer structural shape than the outer hull. If the waves broke through one, it would have been through the second with much less effort.