Chinese Tanker on the GBR: Part 4 - Explained

gCaptain has the full story here. Essentially, there were a series of missteps and safety overlooks which include fatigue, inexperience, and using the wrong chart.

The Australian Government's Safety Transport Bureau offers its preliminary investigative report here.

Chinese Tanker on the GBR: Part 3 - The Arrest

Ok, so I guess you could say that I'm following this story now.

The captain and the chief officer of the Shen Neng 1, the ship that grounded on the Great Barrier Reef, have been arrested. The ship dragged for over 1km (.6 miles) after it hit bottom on April 3rd. The general concern seems to not only be the destruction to the reef, which is extensive, but also the amount of oil that leaked and what the bottom paint that got scraped off the hull, will do to the surrounding coral life. According to the BBC, the bottom paint and oil will disrupt seabird and turtle breeding grounds.

Best guess seems to be 10-20 years to rebuild it. You can read the BBC article here.

Chinese Tanker: Part 2

So as an update to the Chinese Tanker that grounded on the Great Barrier Reef, gCaptain had some great graphics I had to share.

Additionally, they think that the mate was sleeping which caused them run aground.

Chinese Tanker Crashes into Great Barrier Reef (GBR)

The title pretty much says it all. Apparently where the tanker crashed was closed off to shipping. Thanks to gCaptain for bringing this to my attention.

The Bloomberg story is here.

The NY Times story is here.

Below is Australian news coverage of the event and some AP raw footage: