MV Kurdistan

MV Kurdistan was a 182-metre (597 foot) oil tanker built by Swan Hunter (Shipbuilders) Ltd. at the Hebburn Shipyard Tyne and Wear as the Frank D. Moores in June, 1973,[1] renamed Kurdistan in 1976 and at the time of the accident was owned by the Nile Steamship Company Ltd. She was a Liberian-registered tanker which broke in two spilling some 6,000 tons of bunker c oil in the Cabot Strait off the coast of Cape Breton Nova Scotia Canada on 15 March 1979.[2][3] The amount of oil spilled is second only to the SS Arrow spill off Canada's East Coast.

Accident

While on her way from Point Tupper, Nova Scotia to Sept-Iles, Quebec laden with 30,000 tons of bunker c oil, Kurdistan encountered heavy pack ice around noon. After retreating from the ice field, several hours later, two cracks in her hull developed and the ship subsequently broke into two halves. The stern section was towed into Port Hastings, Nova Scotia where the remaining 16,000 tonnes of oil was off-loaded and was later towed to Europe. The section was retrofitted with a new hull and returned to service as the Simonburn in November of 1979.[4] The bow section was towed to deep water south of Sable Island and sunk by gunfire from HMCS Margaree on 1 April.[5][6][7]

References
  1. "Tyne Built Ships". tynebuiltships.co.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  2. Boudrot, Don (13 December 2019). "The MV Kurdistan". Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  3. Neu, Hans J. A. "Sea State During the Breakup of the Oil Tanker Kurdistan" (PDF). cybrary.org. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  4. "Tyne Built Ships". tynebuiltships.co.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  5. Boudrot, Don (13 December 2019). "The MV Kurdistan". Port Hawkesbury Reporter. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  6. "Kurdistan". Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  7. "Kurdistan 1979". novascotia.ca. Retrieved 12 December 2020.

Further reading

http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2019/03/kurdistan-remembered.html

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.