MV ''Derbyshire'' was a British
ore-bulk-oil combination carrier built in 1976 by
Swan Hunter
Swan Hunter, formerly known as Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, is a shipbuilding design, engineering, and management company, based in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England.
At its apex, the company represented the combined forces of three powe ...
, as the last in the series of the sextet. She was registered at
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
and owned by
Bibby Line
Bibby Line is a UK company concerned with shipping and marine operations.
Its parent company, Bibby Line Group Limited, can be traced back to John Bibby who founded the company in 1807. The company along with the group is based in Liverpool. ...
.
''Derbyshire'' was lost on 9 September 1980 during
Typhoon Orchid, south of Japan. All 42 crew members and two of their wives were killed in the sinking. At 91,655
gross register tons, she is the largest British ship ever to have been lost at sea.
History
MV ''Derbyshire'' was launched in late 1975 and entered service in June 1976, as the last ship of the ''Bridge''-class combination carrier, originally named ''Liverpool Bridge''. She and ''
English Bridge
The English Bridge is a masonry arch viaduct, crossing the River Severn in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The present bridge is a 1926 rebuilding and widening (re-using the original masonry) of John Gwynn's design, completed in 1774. A bridge is ...
'' (later ''Worcestershire'' and ''Kowloon Bridge'') were built by the Seabridge Shipping Ltd. consortium for
Bibby Line
Bibby Line is a UK company concerned with shipping and marine operations.
Its parent company, Bibby Line Group Limited, can be traced back to John Bibby who founded the company in 1807. The company along with the group is based in Liverpool. ...
. The ship was
laid up
A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently needed; they are partially or fully decommissioned. A reserve fleet is informally said to be "in mothballs" or "mothballed"; a ...
for two of its four years of service life.
In 1978, ''Liverpool Bridge'' was renamed ''Derbyshire'', the fourth ship to carry the name in the company's fleet. On 11 July 1980, on what turned out to be the ship's final voyage, ''Derbyshire'' left
Sept-Îles,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, Canada, her destination being
Kawasaki,
Kanagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...
, Japan, though she foundered near
Okinawa
is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi).
Naha is the capital and largest city ...
, in southern Japan. ''Derbyshire'' was carrying a cargo of 157,446 tonnes of
iron ore
Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...
.
On 9 September 1980, ''Derbyshire''
hove-to
In sailing, heaving to (to heave to and to be hove to) is a way of slowing a sailing vessel's forward progress, as well as fixing the helm and sail positions so that the vessel does not have to be steered. It is commonly used for a "break"; this ...
in
Typhoon Orchid, some from Okinawa, and was overwhelmed by the tropical storm, killing all aboard. She never issued a
mayday distress message.
[ The ship had been following ]weather routing
Weather routing is a commercial service provided by commercial companies for cargo ships, to optimize their voyage performance. An adventure version of the same used for sailing boats is referred to as sailing weather prediction or sailing weather ...
advice by Ocean Routes, a commercial weather routing
Weather routing is a commercial service provided by commercial companies for cargo ships, to optimize their voyage performance. An adventure version of the same used for sailing boats is referred to as sailing weather prediction or sailing weather ...
company.
The search for ''Derbyshire'' began on 15 September 1980 and was called off six days later. When no trace of the vessel was found, it was declared lost. Six weeks after ''Derbyshire'' sank, one of the vessel's lifeboats
Lifeboat may refer to:
Rescue vessels
* Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape
* Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues
* Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen
A ...
was sighted by a Japanese tanker.
''Derbyshire''s sister ship ''Kowloon Bridge'' was lost off the coast of Ireland in 1986, following the observation of deck cracking, first discovered after an Atlantic crossing. In the wake of this second disaster, Nautilus International
Nautilus International is an international trade union and professional association representing seafarers and allied workers, which is based in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Organisation
The union's head office is in Lond ...
, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (commonly known as the RMT) is a British trade union covering the transport sector. Its current President is Alex Gordon and its current General Secretary is Mick Lynch.
The RMT is on ...
and the International Transport Workers' Federation
The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is a democratic global union federation of transport workers' trade unions, founded in 1896. In 2017 the ITF had 677 member organizations in 149 countries, representing a combined membership ...
funded a new investigation, sought by relatives of the ''Derbyshire'' victims.
Further investigation
In 1994, a deep-water search began. In June 1994, the wreck of ''Derbyshire'' was found at a depth of , spread over . A subsequent expedition spent over 40 days photographing and examining the debris field, looking for evidence of what sank the ship. Ultimately, it was determined that waves crashing over the front of the ship had earlier sheared off the covers of small ventilation pipes near the bow. Over the next two days, seawater had entered through the exposed pipes into the forward section of the ship, causing the bow to slowly ride lower and lower in the water. Eventually, the bow was made vulnerable to the full force of the rough waves, which caused the massive hatch on the first cargo hold
120px, View of the hold of a container ship
A ship's hold or cargo hold is a space for carrying cargo in the ship's compartment.
Description
Cargo in holds may be either packaged in crates, bales, etc., or unpackaged (bulk cargo). Access to ho ...
to buckle inward, allowing hundreds of tons of water to enter within seconds. As the ship started to sink, the second, then third hatches also failed, dragging the ship underwater. As the ship sank, the increasing water pressure caused the ship to be twisted and torn apart by implosion/explosion, a property of double-hulled ships in which the compression of the air between the hulls causes a secondary explosive decompression
Uncontrolled decompression is an unplanned drop in the pressure of a sealed system, such as an aircraft cabin or hyperbaric chamber, and typically results from human error, material fatigue, engineering failure, or impact, causing a pressure vesse ...
.
The formal forensic investigation concluded that the ship sank because of structural failure and absolved the crew of any responsibility. Most notably, the report determined the detailed sequence of events that led to the structural failure of the vessel. A third comprehensive analysis was subsequently done by Douglas Faulkner, professor of marine architecture and ocean engineering at the University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
. His 2001 report linked the loss of the ''Derbyshire'' with the emerging science on freak waves, concluding that the ''Derbyshire'' was almost certainly destroyed by a rogue wave
Rogue waves (also known as freak waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves) are unusually large, unpredictable, and suddenly appearing surface waves that can be extremely dangerous to ships, even to lar ...
.[
]
Work by sailor and author Craig B. Smith in 2007 confirmed prior forensic work by Faulkner in 1998 and determined that the ''Derbyshire'' was exposed to a hydrostatic pressure
Fluid statics or hydrostatics is the branch of fluid mechanics that studies the condition of the equilibrium of a floating body and submerged body "fluids at hydrostatic equilibrium and the pressure in a fluid, or exerted by a fluid, on an imme ...
of a "static head" of water of about with a resultant static pressure
In fluid mechanics the term static pressure has several uses:
* In the design and operation of aircraft, ''static pressure'' is the air pressure in the aircraft's static pressure system.
* In fluid dynamics, many authors use the term ''static pres ...
of . This is in effect of seawater (possibly a ''super rogue wave'') flowing over the vessel. The deck cargo hatches on the ''Derbyshire'' were determined to be the key point of failure when the rogue wave washed over the ship. The design of the hatches only allowed for a static pressure of less than of water or , meaning that the typhoon load on the hatches was more than ten times the design load. The forensic structural analysis of the wreck of the ''Derbyshire'' is now widely regarded as irrefutable.
Fast-moving waves are now known to ''also'' exert extremely high dynamic pressure. It is known that plunging or breaking waves can cause short-lived impulse pressure spikes called "Gifle peaks". These can reach pressures of (or more) for milliseconds, which is sufficient pressure to lead to brittle fracture
Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...
of mild steel
Carbon steel is a steel with carbon content from about 0.05 up to 2.1 percent by weight. The definition of carbon steel from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) states:
* no minimum content is specified or required for chromium, cobalt ...
. Evidence of failure by this mechanism was also found on the ''Derbyshire''. Smith has documented scenarios where hydrodynamic pressure of up to or over 500 metric tonnes per square metre could occur.
Memorials
A bronze plaque was placed on the wreckage as a memorial to those who were lost.
On 21 September 1980, the Bibby Line vessel ''Cambridgeshire'' held a memorial service for ''Derbyshire'' in the area the vessel was lost.
The 20th anniversary of the vessel's loss was marked by a memorial service in Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
, England, which was attended by Deputy Prime Minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...
, himself a former merchant seaman. Ten years later a memorial service was held in the vessel's home port of Liverpool on the 30th anniversary of ''Derbyshire''s loss.
A permanent monument was dedicated on 15 September 2018 in the garden of the Church of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas, Liverpool
The Church of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas is the Anglican parish church of Liverpool. The site is said to have been a place of worship since at least the 1250s. The church is situated close to the River Mersey near the Pier Head. The Chapel of ...
.
See also
* List of ship launches in 1976
* List of shipwrecks in 1980
The list of shipwrecks in 1980 includes ships sunk, foundered, grounded, or otherwise lost during 1980.
January
1 January
12 January
15 January
17 January
18 January
20 January
22 January
28 January
30 January ...
* List of maritime disasters
The list of maritime disasters is a link page for maritime disasters by century.
For a unified list by death toll, see .
Pre-18th century
Peacetime disasters
All ships are vulnerable to problems from weather conditions, faulty design or huma ...
* , an American bulk carrier lost in 1975 under similar circumstances
Notes
References
External links
*
* (dead link, archived)
* – essay criticising the 2000 formal investigation
* – archived version of official inquiry website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Derbyshire
Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean
Maritime incidents in 1980
Engineering failures
Merchant ships of the United Kingdom
Ore-bulk-oil carriers
1975 ships
Ships built by Swan Hunter
Ships built on the River Tees
Ships lost with all hands
September 1980 events in Asia