MS München

MS "München" was a German LASH carrier of the Hapag-Lloyd line that sank with all hands for unknown reasons in a severe storm in December 1978.

The most accepted theory is that one or more freak waves hit the "München" and damaged her, so that she drifted for 33 hours with a list of 50 degrees without electricity or propulsion.

Early career

MS "München" was launched on May 12 1972 at the shipyards of Cockerill, Hoboken and delivered on September 22 1972. The "München" was a LASH ship and was the only ship of her kind under the German flag. She departed on her maiden voyage to the United States on 19 October 1972.

Her sistership MS "Bilderdijk" was built for the Holland America Line at the Boelwerf Temse Shipyard in Belgium (Yard number 859). She sailed under the Dutch flag until 1986 when she was renamed "Rhine Forest". This ship was retired from commercial operation on 15 Dec 2007. She is now an exhibit in Dordrecht.

Last voyage and search operations

The "München" departed the port of Bremerhaven on 7 December 1978, bound for Savannah, Georgia. This was her usual route, and she carried a cargo of steel products stored in 83 lighters and a crew of 28. This was her sixty-second voyage, and took her across the North Atlantic, where a fierce storm had been raging since November. The "München" had been designed to cope with such conditions and carried on with her voyage. The exceptional flotation capabilities of the LASH carriers meant that she was widely regarded as being practically unsinkable.

The "München" was presumed to be proceeding smoothly, until the night of December 12 to December 13. Between 00:05—00:07 (all times GMT) "München's" radio officer Jörg Ernst was overheard during a short radio communication on a "chat" frequency. He reported bad weather and some damage to the "München" to his colleague Heinz Löhmann aboard MS "Caribe", a German cruise ship convert|2400|nmi|km|-1 away. Ernst also transmitted "München's" last known position as coord|44|N|24|W. The quality of the transmission was bad, so that not everything was understood by Löhmann. Since it was a standard communication, the information was not relayed back to the ship's owner until December 17.

Distress call

Around three hours later (03:10-03:20), SOS calls were received by the Greek freighter "Marion", which relayed it to the Soviet freighter "Marya Yermolova" and the German tug boat "Titan". MS "München" gave her position as coord|46|15|N|27|30|W, which was probably around convert|100|nmi|km|-2 off her real position. The messages were transmitted via morse code and only parts of them were received. One fragment received was "50 degrees starboard", which could be interpreted as a 50 degree list to starboard.

Automatic emergency signals were also received by multiple radio stations starting at 04:43. No further calls were recorded after 07:34, probably because US stations stopped listening on the frequency 2182 kHz. At 17:30 international search and rescue operations were initiated, initially controlled by HM Coastguard at Land's End, Cornwall. Wind speeds of 11—12 were reported in the area of the search, hampering efforts.

Initial search efforts and further communications

The next day, 13 December three aircraft and six ships were searching for the "München". At 09:06 Michael F. Sinnot, a Belgian radio amateur in Brussels, received a voice transmission on the unusual frequency 8238.4 kHz, which is usually used by the German ground station Norddeich Radio, which was clear but interrupted by some noise and contained fragments of "München's" name and callsign. Later in court Sinnot reported the voice was calm and spoke in English but with a distinct German accent. Since Sinnot only had a receiver for this frequency, he relayed the message via telex to a radio station in Ostend.

Between 17:00—19:14 ten weak Mayday calls were received by the US Naval Station Rota, Spain at regular intervals, mentioning "28 persons on board". The messages may have been recorded and sent automatically, also "München's" call sign (DEAT) sent in morse code was received three times on the same frequency.

The search intensifies

On December 14 wind speeds dropped to 9. By now four aircraft and 17 ships were participating in the search operation. Signals of "München's" emergency buoy were received. At 19:00 the British freighter "King George" picked up an empty life raft at coord|44|22|N|24|00|W. The same day, Hapag-LLoyd's freigher "Erlangen" found and identified three of "München's" lighters. The following day, December 15, a British Hawker-Siddeley Nimrod patrol aircraft discovered two orange objects shaped like buoys at coord|44|48|N|24|12|W and the salvage tug "Titan" recovered a second life raft. A third one was located at coord|44|48|N|22|49|W the next day by MS "Badenstein", all were empty. A yellow barrel was also sighted that day.

On December 17, at 13:00 "Düsseldorf Express" salvaged "München's" emergency buoy. By now wind speeds dropped to 3. The freighter "Starlight" found two life belts, at coord|43|25|N|22|34|W the "Sealand Consumer" picked up a fourth empty life raft. Also three life vests were sighted, two of them by "Starlight" and another one by "Evelyn".

The search is called off

The international search operation officially ended in the evening of December 20, a week after it had begun. The West German government and Hapag-Lloyd decided to search for two more days, British and American forces supported them. The search effort had been the largest undertaken to that date. Altogether 13 aircraft from the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Portugal and Germany, and nearly 80 merchant and naval ships had searched for the "München" or her crew. On February 16 the car transporter "Don Carlos" salvaged a lifeboat from the starboard side of "München", the last object discovered from her.

Investigation

The subsequent investigation into the disappearance of the "München" centred around the starboard lifeboat and in particular the forward block from which it had hung. The pins, which should have hung vertically, had been bent back from forward to aft, indicating the lifeboat hanging below it had been struck by a huge force, that had run from fore to aft of the ship, and had hurled the lifeboat out of its pins. The lifeboat normally hung 20 metres above the waterline though. With the existence of rogue waves considered so statistically unlikely as to be near impossible, the investigation finally concluded that the severe weather had somehow created an 'unusual event' that had led to the sinking of the "München".

As the science behind rogue waves began to be explored and more fully understood, it was accepted that not only did they exist, but that it was possible that they could occur in the deep ocean, such as in the North Atlantic. Investigators later returned to the question of the "München" and considered the possibility that she had encountered one in the storm that night. Whilst ploughing through the storm on the night of 12 December, she was suddenly faced with a wall of water, between 80 to 100 feet high, looming out of the dark. The "München" would have plunged into the trough of the huge wave, and before she could rise out of it, it collapsed onto her, breaking across her bow and superstructure, tearing the starboard lifeboat out of its pins and likely smashing into the bridge, breaking the windows and flooding her. Having lost her bridge and steering, she presumably also lost her engines. Unable to maintain her heading into the storm, it would have forced her to turn broadside into the waves. She seems to have floated for a number of hours, but the storm and inaccurate positioning prevented her from being located. She was then hulled by the force of the waves, perhaps even being capsized or breached by another rogue wave. She would then have succumbed to the flooding and sunk within a short period.

Incidental effects

"Rheinberg-Kellerei GMBH v. Vineyard Wine Co." 281 S.E.2d 425 (N.C. Ct. App. 1981).
In 1981, the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided a case which indirectly resulted from the tragedy of the "München". Six hundred and twenty cases of wine were loaded aboard the "München", destined for Wilmington, North Carolina. The wine was lost with the rest of the ship's cargo. The producer and seller of the wine (a German corporation) sued a North Carolina wine distributor (the buyer and intended recipient) to recover the purchase price of the shipment. The court held that the German wine producer could not recover the purchase price. This appellate case is included in most Commercial Law textbooks as it illustrates a U.C.C. requirement that, in some circumstances, "prompt notice" be given to the buyer upon shipment, or else the seller bears the risk of loss, because without notice the buyer is denied the opportunity to guard against the risk of loss by, for instance, purchasing insurance.

See also

* List of ship launches in 1972
* List of shipwrecks in 1978

References

* [http://www.seefunknetz.de/deat.htm Seefunkstelle Lashcarrier München/DEAT] (in German)
* [http://www.law.unlv.edu/faculty/rowley/Kellerei.pdf Court's opinion from the "Rheinberg-Kellerei" case]