The Nunatsiaq News published an interesting article this morning, entitled "Clipper Adventurer Ran Into A Known Expert Says."

You will recall that following the grounding of the Clipper Adventurer cruise ship in the Canadian Arctic on August 27th, the cruise operator issued a press statement claiming that the cruise ship ran aground on an "uncharted rock."  The owner even went as far as to make this whopper of an excuse: "we were simply following the chart that we had and right where there wasn’t any indication that there was something in the water, there was this large rock.”

My response in my blog last week?  "Sounds like a PR statement to explain some bad navigational skills by whomever was at the helm."

Well now the little Canadian newspaper, the "Nunatsiaq News," tells us the truth. 

“The cruise ship effectively ran into an underwater cliff,” John Hughes Clarke, head of the University of New Brunswick’s Ocean Mapping Group.  “Had they been just a few ship lengths to the east or west they would have missed it.”

The supposedly “uncharted rock” that the ship hit had been reported by the Canadian Hydrographic Service and in a Notice to Mariners issued by Coast Guard in 2007.  And it is the responsibility of the chart retailers and/or the ships officers to update their charts and note these hazards when they are issued.

Many cruise ships are heading into riskier areas, said Hughes Clarke.  “The problem is cruise ships want to go off the safe shipping lanes where there is more dramatic topography or stunning wildlife,” he said.

The newspaper also states that the damages to the ship was more extensive than initially reported.  The Clipper Adventurer’s hull had sustained "important damages and that many watertight compartments were ruptured." 

Its good to finally get the real story.

 

Credit:  UNB Ocean Mapping Group