SS EL YUNQUE

scrapped

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El Faro's sister ship highlights potential inspection protocol problems

Jacksonville, FL — As the American Bureau of Shipping continues to draw the line on their responsibility over El Faro, the history of her sister ship is highlighting some of the biggest potential concerns. “It’s the owner’s responsibility to maintain the vessel. The rules and regulations set minimum standards, but overall, it’s the owners responsibility to maintain the condition of the vessel to those rules and standards,” says ABS Assistant Chief of Surveys for the Americas Division Lou O’Donnell. He was called in front of the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation for the second time through the course of these public hearing sessions to help further delineate the goals and responsibilities ABS believes exist under the Alternate Compliance Program. ACP is the special inspection program that was over El Faro and is still used for many other commercial vessels, allowing class societies like ABS to do inspection work on behalf of the Coast Guard. O’Donnell’s testimony Friday raised questions about whether El Faro’s owner, TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico, reported everything they should have, specifically dealing with El Faro’s sister ship El Yunque. The Board says an email from July 2015 from El Yunque’s Chief Engineer talked about the port lifeboat engine being full of water. While the questioning and testimony never explicitly stated whether that had been reported to the Coast Guard and ABS, O’Donnell said it would be something that TOTE would be required to report. “It effects a major pieces of lifesaving equipment,” O’Donnell says. http://www.wokv.com/news/news/local/el-faros-sister-ship-highlights-potential-inspecti/ntjdq/

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Sister to Ship That Sank Had History of Problems, Inspection Records Show

Just three months before the cargo ship El Faro sank off the coast of the Bahamas in the middle of a hurricane, killing all 33 people aboard, the Coast Guard issued a “no sail” order for its nearly identical sister ship, requiring it to stay at dock until its deteriorated lifeboat machinery was made safe, Coast Guard records show. The previously undisclosed safety deficiencies are significant, because the National Transportation Safety Board stressed that in its hunt for clues as to why the 790-foot ship sank this month, it would look first to the vessel’s sister ship, El Yunque, which was operated by the same company and passed El Faro at sea just before El Faro disappeared. As seen in a video image released by the Coast Guard, a heavily damaged open lifeboat from the cargo ship El Faro was discovered during search operations in the Atlantic on Sunday.Questions Are Raised About Safety on Ship Missing After StormOCT. 6, 2015 Investigators with the N.T.S.B. boarded El Yunque — named for the Puerto Rican national forest — last week and spent several hours reviewing its records and interviewing the captain, the agency said. El Yunque and its sunken twin, El Faro (“the lighthouse”), are 40-year-old container ships that, until the accident, regularly provided food, cars and other supplies to Puerto Rico from Jacksonville, Fla. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/us/no-sail-order-had-been-issued-for-sister-ship-of-el-faro.html?_r=0