Historic ship may have hit sunken sea container.The Irish sail training From its modern interpretations to its antecedents when maritime nations would send young naval officer candidates to sea (e.g., see Outward Bound), sail training provides an unconventional and effective way of building many useful skills on and off the water. tall ship, Asgard II The Asgard II is the Irish national sail training ship. A brigantine, she was designed and built in Arklow by Jack Tyrrell and was commissioned in March 1981.The Asgard , pictured left, and by French coastguards sinking on Wednesday night in the Bay of Biscay Noun 1. Bay of Biscay - an arm of the Atlantic Ocean in western Europe; bordered by the west coast of France and the north coast of Spain Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east IRISH tall ship Asgard II, which sank off the coast of France, may have struck a semi-submerged container. The world renowned vessel, built in 1981, appeared in the Tall Ships parade of sail in Liverpool in July . It went down as it sailed in fair weather through the Bay of Biscay, 20 miles from shore. The five crew and 20 trainees - among them 22 Irish, two British and one Italian - evacuated in lifeboats and were rescued by the French coastguard. Captain Colm Newport, widely regarded as an excellent seaman, described a sudden, catastrophic influx of water at 3am yesterday. "There was a very fast influx of water," he said. "It was decided to abandon ship as the pumps could not cope. The ship was abandoned in an orderly fashion. "When we got off she was a floating hulk - she was awash." The Captain refused to speculate on what caused the ship to go down. "It would be foolish to speculate now. All I can tell you is we had a severe ingress of water which gave the ship a critical loss of stability and the ship was abandoned," he said. Ireland's Marine Casualty Investigation Board has begun an investigation and sent a two-man team out to spend the next few days interviewing the crew, trainees and liaising with French authorities. It is understood the focus of the probe is a collision with a semi-submerged container - one of the most common causes of marine accidents, sources close to the investigation said. The massive freight holders are airtight air·tight adj. 1. Impermeable by air. 2. Having no weak points; sound: an airtight excuse. airtight Adjective 1. and hang just below the surface of the sea if they fall from cargo boats. Other causes being looked at include a sprung plank in the hull, burst pipes below deck, a damaged valve in the wall of the ship or the propeller falling off. But one of the main indicators is the speed the water filled the ship, which would have been travelling at about six knots at the time, and how quickly it went down. |
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