One person was reported dead and seven others missing Monday afternoon after a fishing boat carrying 27 U.S. tourists and 16 Mexican crew members capsized in rough seas in the Sea of Cortez, officials said.

The 27 tourists, most of them from California, were aboard the charter vessel Erick when a sudden storm struck the area about 2:30 a.m., hurling people into the ocean in the vicinity of San Luis Island, about 60 miles south of the Baja California port of San Felipe, the Mexican Navy said in a statement. The body water in which the ship capsized is also known as the Gulf of California.

View Capsized vessel in a larger map

"The weather was calm, and then a strong wind came," Dora Winkler, a spokeswoman with the Port of San Felipe, told the Los Angeles Times.

Some of the first people rescued -- two tourists and the boat's cook -- were plucked from the water by a Mexican fishing boat, according to Winkler.

All of the 16 Mexican crew members were rescued, she said. The tourist who died was only identified as an adult male. Initial reports said six people were missing; officials later raised the number to seven.

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter from San Diego was assisting the Mexican navy as rescue crews scoured the area for survivors, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Pamela Boehland.

She said the Coast Guard was told by the Mexican Navy that most of the passengers were from Northern California and that one was from Port Angeles, Wash. The search was launched after one of the victims swam to shore and alerted Mexican officials, Boehland said.

"He swam to shore and actually walked to the nearest location," Boehland said, adding that she was unsure whether it was a town or village.

Mexican officials said all of the survivors were wearing life jackets. They were taken to local hospitals and appeared to be in good condition, the Mexican Navy said.

Comment by KM on August 14, 2014 at 11:42pm: http://www.wcvb.com/news/ferry-disabled-after-being-hit-by-large-wa...!bDz1hT

Ferry disabled after being hit by large waves off Scituate

Windows broken by massive waves

UPDATED 11:40 PM EDT Aug 13, 2014

SCITUATE, Mass. —A ferry en route to Boston from Provincetown was disabled after being hit by a large wave Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard.

Just before 4 p.m., a ferry was midway through its fourth trip of the day, to and from Provincetown and Boston, when the vessel was hit by a large set of waves that broke two of the seven windows in the pilot house, Bay State Cruise Company officials said in a statement.

The two windows that broke were in the center of the pilot house, which is where the captain navigates from.

Officials said windws in the passengers cabin, which is under the pilot house, were not broken and it appeared as though the waves were at an angle and height that they only struck at the pilot house level, which is about 20 feet above the water.

After the large waves hit the ferry, seas returned to the normal wave pattern of about 5 feet, officials said.

When the windows were broken, water took the vessel's control systems offline, officials said.

The captain was eventually able to get the starboard engine up to speed, but could not restart the port engine.

"We can only imagine the amount of concern and alarm that the passengers must have felt when the vessel decelerated so suddenly and then had to wait until the propulsion came back online," officials said in a statement.

No injuries were reported to any of the passengers, but the captain did suffer from cuts to his hand, which he had wrapped.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on August 4, 2014 at 9:59pm: http://news.yahoo.com/bangladesh-ferry-sinks-200-board-police-06311...

Bangladesh ferry sinks with up to 200 on board

An overloaded ferry sank in rough conditions in central Bangladesh on Monday with up to 200 passengers on board, in the latest disaster to hit the country's rivers.

Emergency workers said around 100 survivors and two dead bodies had been pulled out of the river, but the rest remain unaccounted for.

"The waves were huge, the ferry was rolling heavily from side to side," said survivor Syed Saadi, whose wife and two sons were still missing.

"The boat flooded with water after a huge wave hit it, and tipped over before sinking under the water," he told Channel 24 television.

The ferry was around 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the capital Dhaka when it sank on the river Padma in the central district of Munshiganj.

Ferry accidents are common in the impoverished country, with overcrowding and poor ship design and maintenance often to blame.

Local police chief Tofazzal Hossain told AFP the vessel was overloaded with passengers and conditions were rough.

Rescue workers and the navy have been mobilised at the scene and a ship with underwater cameras deployed to try to locate the sunken vessel.

Fire service official Mohammad Dulal told AFP that divers were being deployed to try to locate the sunken ferry and look for survivors. But stormy conditions and large waves were preventing them from going into the water.

The police chief of Madaripur, where the ferry began its journey, said it was carrying between 170 and 200 passengers.

But one survivor, speaking on local television, said there were up to 350 passengers on board.

"There was no storm, but the weather was cloudy and the river was rough," he said.

"Suddenly the ferry was hit by a wave and flooded with water. I got out through a window and the ferry sank quickly.

"I was rescued by a local motor boat, other people were also rescued by boats."

Bangladeshi ferries do not maintain passenger logbooks, and are often overloaded.

Emergency workers at the scene said thousands of onlookers had gathered on the banks of the swollen river Padma.

August is monsoon season in Bangladesh, when rivers run high, and the ship was completely submerged.

Bangladesh, one of Asia's poorest nations, is criss-crossed by more than 230 rivers and boats are the main form of travel, especially in the southern and northeastern regions.

However many of the vessels in use date back to before independence in 1971.

Officials have said more than 95 percent of Bangladesh's hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized boats do not meet minimum safety regulations.

In May, a passenger ferry thought to be carrying between 150 and 200 people sank in central Bangladesh, killing dozens of people. The exact death toll remains unknown.

Survivors blamed the ship's captain for refusing to take shelter from a gathering storm.

Around 150 people were killed in the same district in March 2012 after an overcrowded ferry carrying about 200 passengers sank when it was hit by an oil barge in the middle of the night.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on April 25, 2014 at 3:46am

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/04/24/three-people-missing-aft...

Three People Missing After Freighter Sinks off Crete

Apr 24, 2014

Greek rescue teams are searching for three people reported missing after a cargo ship sank off the southern island of Crete.

The Togo flagged, cargo ship, Ag Marina was sank early on Thursday about 30 nautical miles off the western coast of the island of Crete, southern Greece.

As reported seven people, probably of Russian origin were on board. Four crew members were rescued by a nearby cargo ship, while three others are still missing. A total of four cargo ships, a super puma helicopter and a vessel of the Greek coastguard are currently taking part in the rescue operation.

So far, the merchandise of the cargo ship, the place of its departure and its destination are unknown.

Comment by Tracie Crespo on April 16, 2014 at 3:32pm: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/south-korea-ferry-disaster/south-k...

South Korea Ferry Carrying Hundreds of Students Sinks

Comment by Love is the answer on February 7, 2014 at 4:26am: Brutal Waves Tear Spanish Cargo Ship in Half

Rough seas smashed the Spanish ship against a sea wall on France's Atlantic Coast

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on August 10, 2013 at 7:46am: http://gcaptain.com/kiani-satu-runs-aground-south-africa/

Bulk Carrier Kiani Satu Runs Aground Off South Africa [IMAGES]

BY ROB ALMEIDA ON AUGUST 8, 2013

Image: NSRI

Image: Bianca Bezuidenhout, Wilderness NSRI crew

Picture Bianca Bezuidenhout, Wilderness NSRI crew

Image: NSRI

South Africa’s National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has reported that as of 1002 local time, all 19 crew members from the bulk carrier Kiani Satu are safe after being airlifted from their stricken vessel.

The 165-meter bulk carrier was transporting a cargo of rice from ~~Cape Town to Gabon~~ Hong Kong to Ghana when it encountered engine troubles along the southern shore of South Africa. They alerted the NSRI at 0339 this morning of their situation.

Buffels Bay, South Africa

“The crew members, Ukranian and Filipino nationals, are handed into the care of Police Sea Borderline and they will be transported to Mossel Bay for visa control processing and accommodated,” commented Graeme Harding, NSRI Knysna station commander.

“The ship had washed side on to the shore during the early morning and came to rest hard aground after her anchor dragged and the tug boat was not able to hold her off against rough sea swells of 5 meters and strong gusting to 45 knot onshore winds. The decision was taken by the ships Captain to abandon the ship and the safest method was to deploy the helicopter and hoist the crew off the ship while our NSRI rescue boats stood by to assist if necessary.”

The salvage vessel SMIT AMANDLA has been dispatched from Cape Town and is expected to reach the scene the evening of 8 August, notes the NSRI.

A wet cargo of rice could spell the demise of the Kiani Satu however. As one person has noted, rice absorbs water, and thus a cargo of wet rice could put an order of magnitude more strain on the hull, complicating salvage efforts.

Rice could also be a fairly dangerous cargo from salvage standpoint. As a friend of mine in the food business explained, wet (saturated) rice is an incredibly good breeding ground for bacteria. Removing hundreds of thousands of pounds of moldy rice could require an entirely different approach to this salvage job.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on August 2, 2013 at 9:07am: http://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/88333/cargo-ship-capsized-off...

Cargo Ship Capsized Off Thailand. 11 Crew Members Missing

Posted on Jul 5th, 2013

Bangladeshi cargo ship MV Hope capsized in heavy seas south of Phuket, Thailand on Thursday morning with 17 crew members onboard, the Royal Thai Navy reported.

Six MV Hope’s crew members were rescued. Five of them were found in a lifeboat and rescued by a German container ship Buxmoon. The Royal Thai Navy managed to recue one injured sailor by a helicopter and transferred him to Phuket Hospital for recovery.

The Navy told local news portals that the search is ongoing for other 11 sailors that have gone missing.

The ship was sailing from Lumut port in Malaysia to Chittagong port, Bangladesh when it capsized due to high waves reaching up to four meters.

The MV Hope’s certificate showed that the vessel had been overloaded by 1,000 metric tonnes of cargo more than its capacity, which might have caused the accident, according to the information provided to Chittagong Port Authority by the owners, BD News 24 reports.

Comment by Beva on June 24, 2013 at 12:22am: Container Ship Carrying Weapons for Syrian Rebels Splits in Half/Sinks

‘A large fleet named “Mol Comfort” carrying Arms for FSA from the U.S. has crashed in the Indian Ocean as it made its way from Singapore to Jeddah, on board were 4,500 containers loaded with arms for the Syrian rebels’

‘MOL Comfort sank due to yet unclear reasons, sailing from Singapore to Jeddah and after that to North Europe, leaving behind hundreds of drifting containers and a huge aftershock hitting liner sector and all of the maritime industry.

Even the scale of the consequences is hard, impossible, to estimate, not to mention consequences themselves. This is the 1st case in liner sector, when modern ocean-going liner container vessel (built in Japan!) sank in the ocean after breaking in 2 parts, like a poorly built and managed bulk carrier or over aged coaster. Nothing like this ever occurred, and no one believed it was possible, even theoretically. It just could not happen, but still, here it is.’

Source

Comment by jorge namour on May 8, 2013 at 11:08pm: May 8, 2013
7 dead after cargo ship crash in Italy

(CNN) -- At least seven people were killed and four others were hospitalized after a cargo ship smashed into a maritime traffic control tower in the Italian city of Genoa, the Italian Fire Brigade said Wednesday.

Genoa Port Authority personnel were inside the 51-meter-high structure when the crash took place, the Italian Fire Brigade said.

Two people were missing as emergency responders undertook rescue operations in the rubble of the collapsed tower, the brigade said

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/08/world/europe/italy-ship-accident/...

Comment by Howard on February 9, 2013 at 11:56pm: Series of Freak Rogue Waves Crash Over Seawalls in Italy (Jan 23)

The closed-circuit cameras on a yacht in Portosole, Sanremo, Italy captured the moment Jan. 23, 2013 when a wave crashed over the sea wall, sending a motorcyclist, his bike and a car into the marina.

Portosole and other marinas as far as Cannes were hit by a series of rogue waves that crushed cars parked on the dock. Emergency vehicles responding to the scene were also pushed around by waves, according to a captain in the marina.

Swells picked up about 3:30 in the afternoon with the first wave crashing over the sea wall about 4 p.m. without warning or alert from weather monitoring systems, said First Mate Sue Mitchell of M/Y Aquilibrium, which is in the nearby Cantiere Navale Riviera shipyard in Sanremo. Bad weather continued until after 9 p.m., she said.

Large waves had been seen in the area rarely, perhaps once a decade, but have become more frequent. The previous one was about four years ago when the wall at Portosole marina was washed out, Mitchell said.

Source

http://www.the-triton.com/article/italian-french-marinas-hit-by-rog...