MAERSK SEALAND FLAGSHIP UNDER TOW

MAERSK SEALAND FLAGSHIP UNDER TOW    A crankcase explosion in the main engine of “Sovereign Maersk,” a 6,600-TEU containership, last Thursday resulted in the complete loss of propulsive power and the abandonment of a voyage from Hong Kong to Long Beach.
   The vessel, which is in the largest class of containerships afloat, was taken in tow and is expected to reach Kobe tomorrow, Wednesday, where it will discharge all its cargo.
   The Sovereign Maersk is the first of Maersk Sealand’s nine ultra-large “S-class” containerships, nominally 6,600 TEUs. It was named by the Queen of Denmark in 1997 and has since featured continuously in the line’s publicity.
   The explosion injured the ship’s first engineer, though not seriously, and the engine room then had to be flooded with CO2 gas to douse an ensuing fire.
   The cause of the explosion is too soon to say, but Sovereign Maersk’s engine was of a type previously installed in other containerships, including Maersk’s own six, slightly smaller, K-type containerships, said Jesper Kjaedegaard, senior vice president of A.P. Moller.
   Kjaedegaard also pointed to the advantage of his organisation’s size in responding to a problem like this. It was fortunate that a powerful A.P. Moller tug was on hand to take the Sovereign Maersk in tow, avoiding the need to discuss salvage, and that the 3,600-TEU “Sea-Land Initiative” could be diverted to Kobe to load the Sovereign Maersk’s boxes for Long Beach.
   “Kobe is about as good a place as you could choose,” Kjaedegaard added, “because we have a sailing from there every couple of days to other Pacific West Coast destinations, and they will take the rest of the Sovereign Maersk’s cargo.”