巨轮沉没，数名船东高管被判入狱
2024-02-14 21:31阅读：
2024年2月7日在韩国釜山地方法院刑事庭量刑听证会上，现年70岁的北极星航运首席执行官Kim
Wan-joon被以过失杀人罪及过失致船舶沉没罪判处有期徒刑三年。
同案被告公司前海事部门主管被判处有期徒刑两年，公共事务总监被判处有期徒刑一年、缓刑两年。
Polaris Shipping CEO jailed as takeover stalls and fleet
culled
Polaris Shipping, one of South Korea's largest shipowners, is
enduring turbulent times, its CEO sentenced, a proposed takeover on
the rocks, and a significant fleet sell-off.
Dr.G.R.Balakrishnan
The company’s CEO was sentenced yesterday 7 Feb to a three-year
jail term for professional negligence in the sinking of the Stellar
Daisy, a converted ore carrier that went down in the Atlantic off
Uruguay in March 2017 with the loss of 22 lives.
The court ruled that the defendant failed to repair the ship in a
time
ly manner by prioritising profits over the safety of the ship,
citing structural defects resulting from neglect of hull
maintenance and poor repairs as the cause of the Stellar Daisy’s
rapid sinking in just five minutes.
Two other senior Polaris executives received two-year and one-year
sentences at a court in Busan yesterday.
The giant 1993-built Stellar Daisy was one of the most high-profile
ship casualties this century with the families of the bereaved
fighting multiple legal battles to ascertain what happened that
caused it to capsize and sink so fast. Just two of the 24 crew
onboard survived.
A tribunal said last month Polaris Shipping installed an
unauthorised wastewater storage device on the bottom of the ship
and did not inspect or strengthen the ship’s hull.
The shipping company was supposed to conduct repairs to safely load
cargo on the Stellar Daisy but let the ship set sail without
reinforcement, the tribunal said. The Marshall Islands flag issued
its report into the sinking in April 2019, citing a catastrophic
structural failure of the ship’s hull for the deadly
disaster.
The ship – originally a VLCC – took on water and split in two very
fast. Days later another 1993-built converted ore carrier belonging
to Polaris had to reroute for Cape Town for repairs after a hull
crack was discovered.
This then prompted the Busan-based owner to launch an urgent
fleet-wide series of inspections, which in turn saw a 1992-built
converted ore carrier also head off to Cape Town to be fixed and in
the years that followed all the company’s old converted ships were
sold off.
Splash understands that the ships are now sold with an unnamed
Greek owner tabling about $65m per ship.
The Stellar Daisy, a very large ore carrier (VLOC) that sank in
March 2017 in the South Atlantic Ocean, suffered “catastrophic
structural failure to the ship’s hull that resulted in a loss of
buoyancy and uncontrolled flooding,” according to the casualty
investigation report by flag-state Marshall Islands’ maritime
administrator.
The ship, which was converted from a very large crude carrier in
China in 2008 and was operated by Polaris Shipping Co. Ltd. since
2009, sank on a laden voyage from Ilha Guaiba, Brazil, to Qingdao,
China, more than 1,700 nautical miles from the coast of Uruguay and
1,800 nautical miles off the west coast of South Africa. Twenty-two
of the 24 crew members on board are missing and presumed
deceased.
“The structural failure and flooding are thought to have begun in
the No. 2 port water ballast tank (WBT) and then progressed rapidly
to include structural failure and flooding in multiple WBTs, voids
and cargo holds,” the report reads. “The structural damage was
likely due to a combination of factors, including the strength of
the ship’s structure being compromised over time due to material
fatigue, corrosion, unidentified structural defects, multi-port
loading and the forces imposed on the hull as a result of the
weather conditions Stellar Daisy encountered between 29-31 March
2017.”
The administrator’s marine safety investigation found three factors
that likely caused the incident. The report said the large port and
starboard wing tanks “increased the potential for a major
structural failure and loss of buoyancy in the event that one or
more of these tanks flooded while the ship was in laden condition;”
a gap in the safety measures for bulk carriers in the International
Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea regulation; and
ineffective assessments of structural damage identified when the
ship was in dry dock in 2011, 2012 and 2015 were all likely causal
factors.
Korean Register, the 266,141 deadweight ton ship’s Recognized
Organization, responded Monday to the report.
“In general, KR agrees with the majority of the content contained
within the report and concurs that the most likely explanation for
the loss of the vessel was due to a catastrophic structural failure
of the ship’s hull which probably began in No. 2 Port Water Ballast
Tank (WBT),” KR said. “The structural failure was most likely a
result of a combination of factors, including the strength of the
ship’s structure being compromised over time due to material
fatigue, corrosion, unidentified structural defects, multi-port
loading and the forces imposed on the hull as a result of
conditions Stellar Daisy encountered between 29-31 March 2017. KR
agrees with the report … that the fatigue cracking was probably
undetectable by visual inspection prior to the sinking.”
KR said an independent review conducted by Bruce S. Rosenblatt
& Associates, which was hired by the Marshall Islands,
confirmed KR’s structural analysis was conducted properly. It also
said the cracks and defects identified and repaired in 2011 were
those typically found on board of ships of similar age.
“Based on this observation, the attending surveyor determined that
the cracks/defects were not ‘out of the ordinary’ and as long as
proper repairs were performed, a failure analysis was not needed,”
KR said.
KR also plans to review its reporting procedures to avoid future
misunderstandings after the report stated KR did not inform the
administrator of damage to the ship’s frame No. 65 in 2016.
