The Story Behind the Sudden Fracture Accident

With ships becoming larger, potential risks of ship damage and cargo damage for super large ships also rise, in particular the compensation caused by fracture.

Tim Donney, the head of marine risk consultation of Allianz Global Corporate and Security once said that as the liner companies build new container ships over 18000 TEU, shipping risks also increase.

Tim analyzed that due to the increased ship size,containers could be stacked as high as 7 layers or higher on the deck, it would increase the risk of hull fracture caused by containers falling over the board or due to overweight.In addition, the shipping industry still needs a unified and coordinated mechanism in the world to deploy salvage tugs, barges and heavy lifting ships to the scene to carry out effective rescue.Therefore, large ships would make the rescue cost for shipping accident rise all the way.From his comments we can see that firstly,he is worried about the rescue capability for large ships；secondly, large ships are prone to fracture.

It is not the first time that the reporter has heard the view of “l(fā)arge ships being prone to fracture”.Where does the logic come from? In order to solve the doubts, the reporter conducted an in-depth interview.During the interview, an expert expressed his view.Firstly, he agreed with the view that large ship dimension would affect the ship strength.But in addition to this view, he also said that the fracture risk can be avoided effectively through some links such as design and the hull quality control in the process of construction.The expert said that in the process of shipbuilding, as long as design and calculation are conducted based on ship construction standard, the requirements for welding technics are strictly adhered during the production, improving particularly the welding control of high strength thick plate, and the product acceptance is strictly controlled, large container ships with high quality will be achieved and weld cracking and hull fracture can be prevented and controlled.

On June 17, 2013, 4500TEU “MOL Comfort” broke down and sank off the coast of Yemen, which caused severe economic losses.Analyzing the fracture reasons,the industry generally accepted two views: one is that the ship was destroyed by wave； the other is that the ship was destroyed by high strength steel.However, whether attention has ever been paid to the two issues: firstly,why the containership “MOL Comfort” sank with only 7041 TEU containers when its full load is 8110 TEU?Secondly, according to the accident picture, why the“MOL Comfort” has draft inequality phenomenon on the front? A comprehensive consideration led to the doubt that the fracture of “MOL Comfort” may be related to cargo stowage defects.