Leith dry dock ship to be used by US Navy to protect undersea cables
35 people injured after the RV Petrel tips over
Last updated 23rd Mar 2023
A shipping expert is telling this us the ship which toppled over in a dry dock in Leith is going to be used by the US Navy to protect undersea cables that are vital to global connectivity such as the internet.
35 people were injured when the RV Petrel tipped over in high winds at Imperial Dock leaving it resting at an angle of 45 degrees.
The 76m (250ft) research vessel was previously bought and outfitted by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and was sold by his estate in 2022.
Mr Allen bought the ship to locate historically significant shipwrecks and it discovered around 30 sunken warships, including the Japanese Imperial Navy's IJN Musashi.
The Petrel has been moored at Leith since September 3, 2020 due to "operational challenges" from the pandemic, according to a statement on the vessel's social media page.
Dr Sal Mercogliano is Associate Professor of History at Campbell University in North Carolina and previously served as a merchant seaman, and gave MFR News some background on the role of the vessel.
"The Petrel had been laid up since 2020. Paul Allen had been using that vessel as an oceanic exploration vessel and there was a big question about what was going to the fate of it. There were attempts to get some money involved to get it back out there again, then a new bidder came in for the vessel which turned out to be the US Navy.
"The Navy Facilities Command...does a lot of work below water. This vessel was earmarked to do cable protection because of dangers to underwater cables. You just saw what happened to the Nordstream pipeline and the Royal Navy just purchased some vessels for this purpose.
"It had not been used for a couple of years and after a couple of years it would have needed work done to it."
Engineering challenges
Dr Mercogliano also spoke to us about the challenges facing engineers to get the ship upright again.
"Trying to push the ship off the dry dock - get it back upright - while shoring it up, is a potential option, while bringing in large cranes," he said.
"It may be the case.....that you seal the vessel, and close as much as you can, and start to flood the dry dock to float it and right it.
Dry dock dangers
Dry docking is a routine procedure in ship maintenance with many vessels required to have their hulls inspected once a year, but there are serious risks to be managed, as Dr Mercogliano explains.
"The dock in Leith is a little bit unique. In many dry docks you build up underneath the ship a cribbing of wooden blocks and the ship almost sits in a wooden cradle. They don't do that at Leith. They'll have blocks underneath it but they are also using shoring posts from the side to hold the vessel in place.
"The problem with this vessel is it has really high surface area on the side - a very unique profile - and high winds in the area could put a lot of force on it. If one of those shoring beams gives way you put more pressure on the remaining ones.....and you can have a domino effect.
"Dry docking accidents do happen, maybe not to the extent like this with as many people hurt. This isn't an exceptionally large vessel but it is large enough you can have a lot of people working on it.
"The number of people injured really surprised me. If you look at the ship there was a lot of scaffolding high up on the ship so I'm worried people might have been high up when the ship rolled."