Carrabella

Thrilling day here today - wild weather, and on local radio, came a report from a listener of a ship in trouble, close to the beach and with huge waves breaking over it, the propeller above the waterline at times, as it was sea-buffeted. Then about 9am this morning, the Pasha Bolker, a large red tanker, which had been waiting off shore to load coal, ran aground on Nobby's Beach, at the entrance to Newcastle Harbour. More listener reports of several other ships in difficulty off other near-by beaches came in as the hours passed . Now, a few hours later, all the crew have been rescued by helicopter from the Pasha Bolker (Panamanian registered, Danish owned apparently) and the other ships are holding their own, but not quite getting out to deeper water.
See www.abc.net.au/newcastle

I think the worst of the storm has passed.
The last ship wrecked here was in May 1974, on Stockton Beach. Half of it is still there.

Carrabella

Oh dear, I guess the crew may have "wreched", but the ship of course, is wrecked!

pat_woolford

Carrabella, thanks for posting that, heard it on car radio news earlier in day. Hope the ship hasn't broken up, that could be one environmental disaster.

Does anyone know why it was so close to shore and apparently ignored weather warnings to head out to sea when it should have?

Carrabella

It's now three days later, and we've just got our power back on, after the storm which followed the grounding of the ship - power lines and trees down everywhere. Nine people lost their lives in washaways and a collapsing road, and many lost their homes or were flooded out in the early hours of Saturday moring, when high tide and torrential rain combined and turned Hunter Street into "something like Venice"! Floods up the Hunter Valley followed, and are still giving trouble.
After camping out in our home without power for nearly three days, thankful that at least we had water and our sewer system was intact, we missed being able to actually see what was going on, but discovered a renewed camaraderie in our neighbourhood.

As for the ship, it's still a stunning sight, especially at sunrise. The Captain will be in big trouble, they say, because the ballast was prematurely ejected, so the propeller was out of the water, when it was most needed. The ship is only two years old, and has an inner "skin" which is intact, so fingers crossed - they may be able to remove it without environmental damage.

Susan7

Thanks for the update Carabella and sorry to hear about your power loss, hope you have gas! We only had overnight power loss in our part of Sydney's inner west.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that the damage is worse than the Newcastle earthquake. Crossing fingers and toes that the ship doesn't break up to add to this.