'' Bulk Jupiter '' was a Bahamas registered cargo ship. She sank off the coast of Vietnam on 2 January 2015.

History

Sinking

On 2 January 2015 ''Bulk Jupiter'' sank off the coast of

Vũng Tàu Vũng Tàu (''Hanoi accent:'' , ''Saigon accent:'' ) is the largest city of Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province in southern Vietnam. The city area is , consists of 13 urban wards and one commune of Long Sơn Islet. Vũng Tàu was the capital of the p ...

, Vietnam. She departed from

Kuantan Kuantan ( Jawi: ) is a city and the state capital of Pahang, Malaysia. It is located near the mouth of the Kuantan River. Kuantan is the 18th largest city in Malaysia based on 2010 population, and the largest city in the East Coast of Peni ...

, Malaysia on 30 December 2014 with a crew of 19 Filipino sailors and a cargo of 46,400 tons of

bauxite Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO ...

. The Vietnam Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center (Vietnam MRCC) and The

Japanese Coast Guard The is the coast guard of Japan. The Japan Coast Guard consists of about 13,700 personnel and is responsible for the protection of the coastline of Japan under the oversight of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. ...

received distress signals at 22:54 hours UTC on 1 January in position lat 9".01' 01:001N, long 109" 15' 26.01E from ''Bulk Jupiter'', but were unable to make contact with the vessel. Dispatched rescue vessels found one crew member, the ship's cook, who was rescued and was the only survivor. Later searches found two other bodies. The remaining 16 crew members are presumed dead. Early reports indicated that the likely cause of the sinking was sudden loss of stability (

free surface effect The free surface effect is a mechanism which can cause a watercraft to become unstable and capsize. It refers to the tendency of liquids — and of unbound aggregates of small solid objects, like seeds, gravel, or crushed ore, whose behavior app ...

) from the

cargo.

Investigation and corrective action

IMO has approved a circular to warn ships' masters about the liquefaction hazards of bauxite.

References

2006 ships Ships built by Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding 2015 disasters in Vietnam Merchant ships of the Bahamas Maritime incidents in 2015 Maritime incidents in Vietnam Shipwrecks in the South China Sea {{Merchantship-stub