A Norwegian tanker crew were taken completely by surprise as their ship grounded on an unknown shoal in the River Elbe in Germany.
The incident involving the 16,600-dwt Sten Arnold (built 2008), owned by Stenersen, happened on 21 August 2022, a report by the Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation (BSU) said.
The ship was en route from Amsterdam to Hamburg with a cargo of 13,925 tonnes of petrol when it encountered a “critical navigational incident”.
The tanker suffered scratches to paintwork but no structural damage.
Due to its shallow draught, the ship was not dependent on using the River Elbe navigation channel.
But while transiting the waterway, it suddenly lost speed and came to a standstill.
Officers and the pilot realised that the ship had grounded on an unknown shoal in the fairway.
The vessel developed a slight list to port.
“The ensuing analysis showed that the incident had completely surprised the ship’s command and pilot,” the BSU said.
“Moreover, it was in no way foreseeable, as there was no information about the shoal in the ship’s electronic chart.”
Storm surges blamed
The pilot had no way of averting the incident, the report found.
The presence of the shoal was blamed on the increased number of storm surges that year.
The charts used on board and the electronic charts in the pilot’s portable pilot unit were based on maritime authority WSA Elbe-Nordsee’s sounding chart from April that year.
This did not reflect conditions in the fairway on the day of the accident, the BSU said.
The navigational depth in the navigation channel on the tidal Elbe has since been reduced by a metre.
This has simplified resource management within the existing dredger fleet, the BSU said.
The failure to discover the shoal was facilitated by the cancellation of the sounding operation at the area scheduled for 7 July due to technical and personnel-related absence of sounding vessels belonging to the authorities.
The Sten Arnold is insured by Gard in Norway.
