A reflection on the loss of the VLOC M.V. Stellar Daisy

1. STELLAR DAISY – WE ARE BACK TO SQUARE ONE
The loss of the VLOC Stellar Daisy at sea has brought home a
feeling that as far as bulk carrier safety is concerned, we are
back to square one. A series of well-intentioned and very
detailed regulations and standards were adopted in the last 20
years to improve bulk carrier safety, yet M.V. Stellar Daisy
went down in a copy book fashion, suddenly and caused by a
catastrophic structural failure. Even though bulk carrier safety
is a work in progress, can we, in the absence of any reliable
solution on the horizon, take interim measures to prevent
another sinking?
I assume the readers are well-versed with the keywords below
that are relevant to any discussions on bulk carrier safety.
Age of ship. Annual Surveys. Assessment of ship’s
stability. Asymmetrical cargo distribution. Asymmetrical
ballast distribution. Bending moments. Close-up survey.
Commercial pressure. Condition of Class. Corrosion. Coating
breakdown during discharge. Deformation. Enhanced Survey
Programme. Fatigue cracking. Flexing. High loading rates.
High Density cargo. High Tensile Steel. Hold inspection.
Large hatches. Liquefaction. Loading sequence/
Deballasting plan and execution. Local Strength/ Local
loading criteria. Max cargo allowed in each hold.
Progressive Flooding. Pounding. Panting. Quick capsizing
of bulk carriers. Racking. Residual Stress. Shear Force.
Side shell flexing. Side frame detachment. Structural
damage during discharge. Transverse Bulkhead strength.
Torsional stresses. Twisting of hull girder. Unreported
repairs. Warping of the hull girder. Wave excited hull
vibration. 2 hrly record of SF/BM.
In order to understand the factors affecting bulk carrier
safety, a good document to refer is the IACS publication “Bulk
carriers - Handle with care” since it captures quite well the
shipping industry’s best understanding of the issue. The
publication identifies nine major risks of hull or local
structure overstressing and the consequent weakness (when
loading high density cargoes.)
 Deviations from the loading manual.
 Shallow draught loading.
 High loading rates.
 Asymmetric cargo and ballast distribution.
 Lack of Effective Ship/shore communication.
 Exceeding load line marks.
 Partially filled ballast tanks or holds.

2.  Inaccurate cargo weight measurement during loading.
 Structural Damage
The precautions associated with the above are for the
understanding and compliance of both the ship’s crew as well as
the terminal operators.
Even though the risks listed above are well understood, control
measures are not adequately applied by the operators and other
stake holders with sufficiently rigorous application.
 There is a surrender of responsibility usually by the
ship’s crew to the terminal because the terminals’ claim
that they have been loading ships since the beginning of
time, hence they know best. The ship’s crew balk at
stopping the loading if the deballasting is unable to
keep up with the loading. There could hence be short
spells when SF/BM exceed the permissible limits.
 During loading, we must move away from ‘keeping within
permissible stress limits’ and move towards ‘keeping to
minimum stress limits’
 It is pretty common to see terminals trying to minimise
the number of pours, sometimes even loading a particular
hold to its full load in one pour.
 It is not the average loading rate but the max loading
rate for a given time that could induce high local
stresses.
 The ship’s crew do not usually conduct a thorough
assessment of structural damage after any discharge
operation, which is mainly because of the small number
of crew and other workload of higher priority.
At the structural level, High risk ships are those that have
all of the three factors:-
 bigger than panamaxes
 more than 15 year old,
 Carry iron ore.
Most vessels generally start their service life as being
adequate to the demands of the sea, but may become inadequate
at some point later due to deterioration with age. Also our
assumptions of the dynamic loads on the hull due to waves and
ship’s motions might be drastically erroneous.
In view of the above, it may be necessary to derate big vessels
progressively, by adjusting their load lines to reduce their
cargo carrying capacity.

3. It is also important to improve compliance with safe working
practices by:
 A tougher regime of cargo hold inspection (for structural
damage) between two annual surveys.
 A more comprehensive recording of SF/BM during any
loading/discharging operation.
 A better training of officers and crew on bulk carriers
regarding the risks associated with high density cargoes.
 Insistence on all structural repairs to be reported to the
classification Society.
References:-
IACS publication – “Bulk carriers – Handle with care”
life,
SNAME Transactions, Vol. 106, 1998, pp. 1-40
The Strength and Reliability of Bulk Carrier Structures Subject
to Age and Accidental Flooding
Jeom Kee Paik, Member, Pusan National University, Pusan, and
Anil K. Thayamballi, Life Member,
American Bureau of Shipping, New York
Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional
Economics (BITRE) ( Australia)
STRUCTURAL FAILURE OF LARGE BULK SHIPS
Report No 85
The Strength and Reliability of Bulk Carrier Structures
Subject to Age and Accidental Flooding