201161 Mini-tsunami wrecked gangway

06 Oct 2011 MARS

On a pleasant evening in the 1980s, our large LPG carrier was 12 hours away from Port Said, and scheduled to join the southbound Suez Canal convoy the next day. At sunset, there was a slight sea with clear skies and good visibility and the forecast promised calm conditions. The Chief Officer and I were relaxing on the bridge discussing plans for the impending arrival and canal transit. The crew had just finished rigging the starboard accommodation ladder. They left it suspended outboard, fully rigged and secured horizontally at main deck level, ready to be lowered for the pilot next morning. Suddenly, our conversation was interrupted when the ship’s stern began to rise and we were overtaken by a single, huge swell that rolled past the ship just above deck level, the crest breaking on to the main deck on both sides. I estimated the height of the rogue swell to have been about seven metres.

The accommodation ladder was lifted bodily, torn off from its fixtures and was dumped on the upper deck as a twisted heap of metal. Fortunately, the crew had just entered the accommodation and had secured the doors. It was a very expensive and embarrassing incident. A telex to head office reporting the damage caused by a rogue swell was, I suspect, treated with some scepticism, until the pilot who boarded us in the morning confirmed that the previous evening, such a wave had entered Alexandria harbour and damaged some ships alongside. Later, we learned that a strong under-sea earthquake had occurred the previous evening. It is thought this tremor generated the mini-tsunami which wrecked our gangway - and also saved my face in Head Office!

I was reminded of Conrad’s quote ‘I have known the sea too long, to believe in its sense of decency’.