Among the causes is the possible failure of the equipment used to secure the rig positioned on deck on the bulk carrier Mask
According to what SHIPPING ITALY learned, and confirmed by some insiders, the precious project cargo that in mid-January had been embarked from the Multiservice Terminal fell into the sea off the coast of Ancona, during the navigation that began a week ago from the port of Marghera.
On deck on the bulk carrier Mask (a 27,900 ton handysize bulk carrier formally owned by the Panamanian shipowner Mask Maritime Enterprise Group and managed by the Greek Onyx Shipping owned by Luay Mallah) a 375 ton column was loaded, produced by the Simic company together with another five 145-ton packages (plus related accessories).
Officially the destination of the cargo was a port in Oman but the huge made in Italy column will never reach its destination because, for reasons yet to be clarified, along the way it was sailing in the Adriatic Sea it ended up in the sea and is now irrecoverable.
According to some sources, one of the probable causes could have been the enormous weight of the system which, by breaking through the hatches of the bulk carrier ship Mask, compromised the load securing systems and this led to the loss of the column at sea with the roll of the hull. Others suggest that for some reason the load absorbers that had been installed were damaged and this led to a progressive failure of the lashing systems with consequent fall of the load rolled sideways.
Already in the port of Marghera the embarkation operations had been laborious since the Mask, a dry bulk carrier unit, is not specialized for the transport of exceptional parcels. In fact, the Multiservice terminal had made it known that “a lifting plan had to be prepared with the use of three cranes”. In addition to this, the same terminal has now made it known that the cargo securing operations during boarding were conducted by the personnel on board the ship using external suppliers “and therefore not attributable to the Fhp terminal.
As soon as it arrived in the port of Marghera, the ship Mask had been subjected to checks by the Port State Control from which four deficiencies concerning safety on board had emerged.
Another unclear aspect of this story is the time with which the other parties involved in the shipment were informed of the incident by the shipping company, i.e. at least a couple of days late compared to the moment in which the cargo ended up at sea and when the bulk carrier had already been ordered to proceed to the Turkish port of Aliaga where she arrived on 24 January.
source: Shipping Italy, https://www.shippingitaly.it/2023/01/26/caduto-in-mare-al-largo-di-ancona-il-project-cargo-partito-da-marghera-a-bordo-della-nave-mask/?share_from=whatsapp
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