ship keel breaks

Disasters at sea has an episode where this also happened to another ship. It’s a great series that re-enacts a ship in peril and then goes over how they found the cause. Bow seems now ballasted correctly, but I’m no expert.

Very unfortunate situation. This is actually not terribly uncommon but it is unusual for the ship to sink. Typically when this happens the ship separates and the two halves remain afloat.

In this case it appears that the vessel was at anchorage during a storm and she was riding the waves while at anchor. From what I have read the crew didnt all get their survival suits on, which is what lead to the unfortunate loss of life. Also the ship ws a 45 year old river cargo vessel designed for rivers and coastal voyages. So bad combination of old poorly maintained vessel, in sea conditions above what it was designed for.

Read abut this event and saw the videos on You Tube. Sad that lives were lost. The **** thing just broke in half.

the way that hull was flexing made it look like it wouldn't even take a big wave to kill it.