- 2 days ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01A massive cargo ship vanishes in a raging typhoon.
00:05It's a fantastic mystery how a ship nearly a thousand feet long could just disappear.
00:10Authorities blame captain and crew, but not everyone is convinced.
00:15I trusted the crew. They wouldn't put their lives in danger.
00:19We'll prove it.
00:21Their evidence lies at the bottom of the world's deepest ocean.
00:25Look at that.
00:26What's uncovered, no one expected.
00:28The ship did something, which is to implode and then explode.
00:33For sure, 44 of them were all alive as she went into Typhoon Hall.
00:38For sure, they're all dead.
00:40How did that happen?
00:46No!
00:47No!
00:48No!
00:49No!
00:50No!
00:57September 8th, 1980.
01:00The MV Derbyshire is passing through the Western Pacific en route to Japan.
01:05Captain Geoffrey Underhill is in command of the massive ship.
01:18The 47-year-old father of two is in charge of every detail of the Derbyshire's operation, and its crew of 42.
01:26Good morning, Kelly.
01:27Morning, Captain.
01:28Have the MEP reports come in?
01:29Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:30I have them right, yeah.
01:31Geoff Underhill, or Gavu, as he was nicknamed by everybody, because that was his initials, was a very competent seafaring master.
01:43As far as his personality went, he liked to control by consensus.
01:49the defenses.
01:51Nigel Malpass served aboard the Derbyshire as chief officer.
01:55He knows the ship and her crew very well.
01:57Derbyshire was a wonderful ship to sail on.
02:01She was almost like brand new.
02:03There was hardly any wear and tear on her, and things worked.
02:07Unless you've actually sailed on one, it's hard to visualize how big they were, but they
02:11were really massive.
02:13294 meters, the Derbyshire is longer and twice the weight of the Titanic.
02:20Her nine cargo holds have a capacity of 160,000 tons, and the bridge deck is 10 stories high.
02:28A ship of this size can take more than three kilometers to stop and over a kilometer just
02:33to turn.
02:34The Derbyshire is a bulk carrier.
02:37Her huge holds can be filled with anything from grain to crude oil.
02:41But on this trip, she's carrying 157,000 tons of iron ore.
02:46After leaving Canada and passing around the southern tip of Africa, she's now just a few
02:51days from her final destination, Kawasaki, Japan.
02:56Because of her size, she's had to take the long way around.
02:59She was called a cape-sized ship because she was 145 feet wide and drew 60 feet of water
03:05and was just simply too deep to go through either the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal.
03:10So she had to go beneath the capes, Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, into some of the roughest
03:15waters of the world.
03:17By now, ship and crew have been at sea for more than two months.
03:23Most are experienced seamen, including 19-year-old deckhand Peter Lambert.
03:29This is his second year at sea, and he loves it.
03:32You couldn't stop talking about it.
03:34Loved it.
03:35You know, I always feel a seafarer was born.
03:39You can't make one.
03:41You form very close bonds with the seafarers you were with.
03:45Your life at times depends on it.
03:47Ship's crew is like a family because they're on the vessel for extended periods of time together.
03:52Ah, yes, you can just set it there.
03:56An unusual but well-appreciated company perk allows wives to travel with their husbands.
04:03That's perfect.
04:0424-year-old Anne Marie Hutchinson is one of the two wives on board.
04:09So far, the voyage has been uneventful.
04:17Captain, anything exciting?
04:20A little too exciting.
04:22Chief Officer Curly Bayless delivers weather forecasts predicting a fast-moving storm.
04:28Typhoon Orchid is heading their way.
04:31The Western North Pacific has this nickname of Typhoon Alley, and that's because the typhoons
04:38that form there can be upwards of 300 to 400 miles across.
04:42Tremendous winds, upwards of 100 miles an hour, generating tremendous waves.
04:47Very destructive force.
04:49To avoid danger, Underhill needs to keep his ship at least 320 kilometers from the storm.
04:56But there's a problem.
04:58He received three weather reports, one from Guam, one from Tokyo, and one from Hong Kong.
05:04And each one had given Typhoon Orchid a different location.
05:10Brilliant.
05:11Three forecasts, all different.
05:16With conflicting weather reports, Captain Underhill has to make his best guess how to dodge the storm.
05:23You still have to rely on your expertise, your knowledge base, in being able to identify where you are in relation to the storm.
05:30Both the typhoon and the ship are moving.
05:33Figuring out how to avoid the storm is an enormous challenge.
05:37Being the sensible seafarer that he was, he would have said, right, that's three typhoons.
05:42He wouldn't have tried to second guess which was the right one.
05:45He altered course to the north and the east to avoid all three.
05:50If we maintain a good speed, we should be able to sneak through here.
05:56You want to make a plan that if I can keep this course and this speed over the next 24 hours, it may pass behind me.
06:04I might catch some of the weather, but that won't bear the brunt of it.
06:08Let's make sure the ship is secure, yeah?
06:10Yes, sir.
06:16This is the captain speaking.
06:18Looks like the weather's getting worse, so please take care to the storm abates and make sure the ship and your cabin are secure.
06:24It was a procedure within the company that as you approached bad weather, you would go through the procedures of battening down ventilators,
06:34putting cameras, covers on them, and basically checking that everything was snug and ready to take any kind of sea.
06:42Sailing in heavy weather is part of life at sea.
06:45It's just part of the job.
06:47That's not to say that you take it lightly.
06:50One of the most important tasks is to batten down the hatches, large and small.
06:56Peter Lambert is still learning the ropes.
07:00Make sure you do it nice and tight.
07:03Everybody adored him.
07:04Everybody loved him.
07:06He'll help you.
07:08No matter what you need to do, and he would help you.
07:17Captain, we're down to eight knots.
07:19Within hours, it's clear the captain's plan isn't working.
07:23Despite their change of course, they're hitting heavy weather.
07:27The swelling seas are already making it hard to keep up their speed.
07:31Autopilot's off.
07:32Let's see if we make some better headway.
07:39Conditions continue to worsen.
07:42An unexpected shift in the storm's direction has put them directly in its path.
07:47Through the night, wind speeds reach up to 80 kilometers per hour, and wave heights soar to more than seven meters.
08:01Gentlemen, looks like we'll have to tough this one out.
08:05Heave two, please.
08:07Heaving two.
08:08Keep the wind light on the starboard bow.
08:11Turning to port, keeping the wind light on the starboard bow.
08:15What the captain wanted to do at the time was to adjust his heading and his course such that he was taking the waves right on his starboard bow.
08:25As the center of the typhoon closes in, winds have increased to 100 kilometers per hour, and wave heights to more than 10 meters.
08:42These are conditions that few people have experienced at sea.
08:47The wind is very loud.
08:49It's roaring, basically.
08:51The ship is pitching, very little visibility, and generally an unpleasant situation to be in.
08:58There's little else to do but endure the violent motion of the ship.
09:05It has a long-term effect over days of that on the crew.
09:08It's exhausting.
09:09Fatigue sets in because nobody really sleeps, particularly if you're really battered in some heavy seas.
09:17Captain Underhill probably didn't leave when the weather really picked up, because he has to be there, he has to see what's going on.
09:23It's just continued vigilance all the time, a weary vigilance.
09:28Radio our position to Liverpool.
09:36As they enter their second night of the storm, the Derbyshire radios her position to shore and checks in with a nearby ship.
09:44This is the Derbyshire.
09:46How are you enjoying the weather?
09:48Loving it.
09:49Loving it.
09:50Loving it.
09:51Even better when we meet up in Tokyo.
09:54Seeing you there in a day or two.
09:57William McCrone was on a container ship heading to the same port in Japan.
10:02Actually, we were talking to the Derbyshire on the VHF at the time.
10:05And he made arrangements to meet the guys on board, because there's a nightclub in Tokyo called Fufus in Roppongi.
10:12We're all going to go up the road and have a night in Fufus, but unfortunately, it never happened.
10:1920 degrees starboard.
10:2020 degrees to starboard, Captain.
10:22Easy does it.
10:24By now, more than two days of unrelenting gale-force winds have whipped the waves to monstrous heights.
10:34Then…
10:35The scream of twisting steel can only mean one thing.
10:47We're losing her!
10:48We're gonna lose her!
10:50We're gonna lose her!
10:51Abandon ship!
10:52Abandon ship!
10:53Abandon ship!
10:54Abandon ship!
10:55Abandon ship!
10:56Abandon ship!
11:00Abandon ship!
11:01Abandon ship!
11:06Abandon ship!
11:07It would be only in the last few seconds they would have realized what was happening.
11:16Five days later, Typhoon Orchid has finally dissipated, but no one has heard from the
11:45Derbyshire, not even a mayday call.
11:48Come daylight in the morning, we can take that terminal, we can hear helicopters, and we
11:51look around the Japanese Coast Guard, we're just coming over us, the helicopters, and
11:55they're all heading their way out to sea.
11:59They're going to start the search for the Derbyshire.
12:02Their hope that in a vast ocean, the lives of 44 people can still be saved.
12:13Eleven days after the last radio call from the MV Derbyshire, an exhaustive search by
12:18the Japanese Coast Guard has found no survivors.
12:24An oil slick is sighted 45 kilometers from the Derbyshire's last position, but no sign of
12:29the largest British ship lost at sea.
12:31It was a fantastic mystery as to how a ship of nearly 1,000 feet long could just disappear.
12:41All 44 passengers and crew are presumed dead.
12:46Among them, 19-year-old deckhand Peter Lambert.
12:49His family are devastated.
12:51You know, my mother, he was totally destroyed.
12:54And she kept on asking, why?
12:57Why Peter?
12:59Why did the ship sink?
13:02How did he die?
13:04Why?
13:05The sinking is attributed to Typhoon Orchid, and written off as an act of God.
13:13But not everyone is convinced.
13:17Why would a sensible, well-found ship suddenly disappear quickly without any distress signals?
13:22Yeah, I just said, mother, I promise you I'll find out how this ship sank, why it sank,
13:32and why Peter lost his life on it.
13:35I promise you I'll do that.
13:42Wasting no time, a 28-year-old Paul Lambert reaches out to the National Union of Seafarers.
13:48What I wanted to ask you about was actually Derbyshire.
13:51I think you should take a look at this.
13:55Different ships have been known there, and nothing was getting done about it.
13:58Derbyshire was the same.
14:01All the same type of freighters.
14:04Lambert learns a shocking number of bulk carriers have been sinking.
14:07On average, one bulk carrier sank every six to seven weeks with total loss of life.
14:15The error of the coffin ships, that's how weak last it.
14:20Lambert is convinced the lives of other seafarers are in danger.
14:24But he can't get anyone to act until another accident, six years after the tragedy, changes everything.
14:33The turning point was in 1986, and the Derbyshire sister ship, the Cowliving Bridge, got in difficulties in the Irish Sea.
14:46There was major cracking.
14:48Had a bulkhead right in front of the deckhouse at frame 65.
14:51The Derbyshire is one of six sister ships designed with steel beams along the length of their hulls to add strength.
15:01But during construction, the girders are joined at frame number 65, creating a potential weak point.
15:09Now three of the six ships have had something go badly wrong at sea.
15:14For the Derbyshire families and many people looking at the ship, seeing an obvious structural flaw in a ship that disappeared made them think that probably what caused the Derbyshire to sink was a flaw at frame 65.
15:28This began to look like a smoking gun.
15:31The families fear that if a design flaw did cause the disaster, other lives could be at risk.
15:41It's not just what happened to Peter, something had to be done.
15:54Yes, hello, it's Paul Lambert again. Have you had time to review that information I sent you?
15:59Lambert uses the suspicions about frame 65 to convince government officials to re-examine their conclusions.
16:09But after two years of investigation, and nine years after the tragedy, they once again conclude Typhoon Orchid is to blame for the loss of the Derbyshire.
16:19The findings were an act of God.
16:24It's a verdict the families refuse to accept.
16:28Derbyshire, thanks twice. One, in the South China Sea. Two, you see a whitewash.
16:35Now won't you have a look at this?
16:37Lambert decides the only way they'll get a proper investigation is if the families of the victims take matters into their own hands.
16:44We're not going to know the truth unless we find it ourselves.
16:47Their first task is to find the wreck.
16:50They had to work out and extrapolate where roughly they thought the vessel was based on where the oil slick had been discovered by the Japanese Coast Guard.
17:00The search area encompasses some of the deepest waters in the ocean, reaching depths of more than five kilometers.
17:07In those days, there was very limited capabilities to really search large areas of the seafloor. And for the most part, the wreck was thought to be unfindable.
17:20Undaunted, Lambert and the other families of the crew do something that's never been done before.
17:32They raise enough money to launch a short eight-day search. And they get lucky.
17:38Fourteen long years after the tragedy, on the fifth day of the expedition, they confirm the location of the wreck.
17:45We found her at Derbyshire.
17:50It blows your mind. Honestly, God.
17:56We know where she is. We know where the graves are. Forty of old people.
18:03With news of the discovery, 42-year-old Lambert demands the government reopen the investigation.
18:12We want these bull carriers locked up. We want them surveyed properly.
18:16We want the ones that are on seawary taken out of commission and scrapped.
18:19We want men to go away to sea, knowing that the ship underneath them is safe, not worrying whether they come home again or not.
18:26In the face of overwhelming public interest, the British government agrees to fund a full-scale expedition.
18:34And this time, they bring in the heavy guns.
18:37They brought in Woods Hole, who was the most advanced oceanographic and deep-sea research group of their day, and perhaps to this day as well.
19:02The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, whose team discovered the Titanic, will now explore the Derbyshire, over 4,000 meters beneath the sea.
19:15The Derbyshire survey was really the world's sort of first very high-quality forensic investigation.
19:25Thirty-eight-year-old robotics engineer Andy Bowen is in command of the world's most sophisticated submersible.
19:34Our job was to actually go down and collect evidence for the possible scenarios that would explain why the ship was lost.
19:42For example, had the propeller fallen off? Had the rudder failed? Was there a fire in the engine room?
19:50A total of 13 possible causes for the sinking are marked for investigation, including a possible catastrophic failure at frame 65.
20:03Damn it. Hooked again.
20:05Andy Bowen maneuvers his ROV to image as much of the wreckage as possible.
20:10Up and away.
20:13He needs to give investigators enough detail to analyze the damage.
20:17It was an incredible challenge to the extent that we're dangling these cameras at the end of literally a thread three miles down into debris field.
20:30Something like a large collapsed skyscraper.
20:33Wow. It's cold. It's for the computers.
20:40Ph.D. student Alex Glykos joins Professor Douglas Faulkner to analyze the images.
20:46You had a visibility up to maximum 10 meters. That's all you could see.
21:04The debris is scattered over more than a kilometer of the sea floor.
21:09All right. Let's move in for a closer look.
21:21When I saw the name of the sea preserved in an excellent condition at 4,200 meters, definitely that was a moment that I will never forget.
21:3417 years after the tragic loss of the ship and her 44 passengers and crew, the answers may finally be within reach.
21:56Investigators guide a remote camera vehicle four kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
22:01They need to know why the largest British ship ever lost at sea went down.
22:06Really torn apart. Look at that.
22:10The giant ship has been shattered into over 2,000 pieces of twisted metal and debris.
22:20I was wondering why the ship is fragmented. Why the ship is not in two, three pieces like the Titanic, for example.
22:31Andy Bowen has examined many shipwrecks, but he's never seen anything like this before.
22:38I think everyone was staggered by the fact that it covered such a large area.
22:43The bow and the stern of the ship were in two separate places, separated by a significant distance.
22:51And everything else in between, all of the ship's structure was, for the most part, turned into what I would almost call confetti.
23:02The twisted metal fragments are a telltale sign of a violent phenomenon that can tear a ship apart.
23:08When the Derbyshire sank, because of its unique construction of a double hull, it actually did something which is to implode and then explode.
23:21As the Derbyshire sank below the waves, increased water pressure drove her watertight double hulls inward.
23:27At that point, the trapped air became so highly compressed, it exploded.
23:35It explodes back out in a shockwave.
23:39And that energy release was probably equivalent to many tons of TNT.
23:45And so the wreckage on the seafloor was just huge pieces of ship twisted by energy that just is almost impossible to imagine.
23:55In other words, the explosions were the result of the catastrophe, not the cause.
24:02Investigators still have no idea what set off the disaster.
24:09The ROV has captured thousands of high-definition photographs.
24:14Investigators scrutinized them, searching for any sign of a fracture that occurred before the ship sank.
24:20In particular, around the known structural flaw at frame 65.
24:26We definitely had to find evidence whether the rupturing of all the metal parts around bulkhead 65 was brittle or ductile.
24:36Ductile means that it took place slowly.
24:39Brittle means that the fragmentation took place rapidly.
24:42But it's a dead end.
24:46Frame 65 shows unmistakable signs of the same explosive phenomenon.
24:51It wasn't frame 65.
24:55This happened when she was already going down.
24:58The cause they had hoped to prove, a weakness in her construction, is not the reason the Derbyshire sank.
25:04We evidence that all these empty compartments, aft of the bulkhead 65, had been imploded, exploded, when the ship was sinking.
25:17So that means that there was no cracking on bulkhead 65.
25:21If it wasn't frame 65, something else must have triggered the disaster.
25:29We're losing her!
25:30We're gonna lose her!
25:34Behind this ship!
25:36Behind this ship!
25:44Behind this ship!
25:46Behind this ship!
25:47If the ship's structure didn't fail, investigators wonder, is her cargo responsible for her sinking?
26:01Derbyshire was carrying this iron ore.
26:04The snowstorm of this fine material, it was scattered everywhere.
26:11Ore carriers are very dangerous ships because they have such heavy, dense cargoes that as soon as the ship starts flooding and loses buoyancy, the ship goes straight to the bottom.
26:20An ore ship sinks literally like a stone.
26:23On this voyage, the Derbyshire was loaded with 157,000 tons of iron ore.
26:30A cargo so heavy, only seven of her nine holds could be partially filled.
26:35You need to ensure that your center of gravity and center of buoyancy, what's called the GM, is moderate. Otherwise, you get what's called a dead ship.
26:46It doesn't have that buoyancy and it whips from side to side.
26:49Is it possible the crew made an error when they loaded the ship?
26:54Are we good to go?
26:56The dead ship is one that you start to get worried about.
26:59Cheers, mate.
27:00They review the records from the Derbyshire's port of departure, but there's no sign of any problem that would explain the disaster.
27:06Investigators are forced back to what they've always known. The sea conditions on the night the Derbyshire went down were unusually extreme.
27:17One ship in the same typhoon reported seeing waves that were between 60 and 90 feet tall.
27:24This is the Derbyshire. How are you enjoying the weather?
27:27You're standing on the bridge and all you see ahead of you is just a wall of water.
27:33Is she going to go over it or go through it?
27:36Professor Faulkner proposes a theory, which at the time is still controversial.
27:42Perhaps the Derbyshire was overcome by a rogue wave.
27:47I think it's been happening since the dawn of time.
27:49For centuries, mariners have told stories about vast waves that seem to come out of nowhere.
27:58Rogue waves are often described as being a single solitary wave that's much taller than the rest of the seas, usually two to three times taller.
28:08Often coming from a different direction from most of the other waves.
28:12The wave is breaking, it's unstable, and when it hits a ship it can have incredible impact.
28:16Nobody knows how they form.
28:20They literally form out of nowhere and they will hit a ship.
28:25Did a rogue wave send the Derbyshire and 44 people to the bottom of the sea?
28:32It's terrible.
28:33It's terrible if you could see it and just as terrible if you could.
28:36Investigators believe the hull of the Derbyshire was nearly intact when she sank.
28:47Was she overcome by a rogue wave?
28:50Or was it something else?
28:54They analyzed photographs of the wreckage, hoping to find out.
28:57We're talking about 135,000 still images.
29:04So we had to link all the, put all these photographs together, like putting my puzzle back together.
29:12Each image was taken individually and carefully placed in context to its neighbor so that you could get this large area view, which is impossible to get in any other way.
29:25They literally put together an enormous mosaic of what the wreck looked like.
29:32Most of the ship has been shattered, but the bow of the ship is different.
29:38Amazing.
29:39The bow was, for the most part, intact.
29:46And that indicated that the bow was generally flooded and full of water.
29:52And therefore, the fracture did not compress or explode under water pressure.
29:57Which says a lot about the possibilities to why the ship sank.
30:00If the bow was full of water, is this what caused the sinking?
30:08That was a question to be answered.
30:12How the water went, came inside?
30:14And why there was water inside?
30:16As investigators search for the source of the flooding, they find a troubling image.
30:20We had close-up high-definition photographs from the bow.
30:26And we saw the open huts.
30:30The lid was lost.
30:32The butterfly screws were at the full extent, which meant that they could not have been locked.
30:39So there is a scenario starting forming there, that hatch had been left open.
30:49The open hatch they've discovered is the bosun's hatch, leading to a storage compartment below the forward deck.
30:56Let's make sure the ship is secure.
30:59Yeah?
31:00Yes, sir.
31:02Is it possible the wing nuts on the bosun's hatch were not properly secured by the crew?
31:07Make sure you do it nice and tight.
31:11If the hatch opened during the storm, tons of seawater could have entered the storage space below and loaded down the front of the ship.
31:20The bow is lowering as the water is filling up these spaces.
31:26And there comes a point where the bow is not rising now like it should.
31:30With the flooded bow sinking low in the water, waves would begin washing further and further up the deck.
31:37Loading tons of seawater onto the enormous main cargo hatches.
31:42Those hatches are strong, they're well made, but they're not designed for that type of loading.
31:47And by now we may be in the worst part of the weather.
31:50With waves maybe upwards of 40 feet.
31:54So each one of those falls down onto that number one hatch.
31:58Hundreds of tons falling down on the hatch.
31:59A 12 meter wave can smash down with a force of 400 tons, far exceeding the design limit of the hatch covers.
32:09It would only be a matter of time before they gave way.
32:13Look at that.
32:19Once the first cargo hatch collapsed, the nearly empty hold would fill quickly, pulling the bow even deeper into oncoming waves.
32:28The covers failed on hatch number one.
32:33Hatch number two is empty.
32:35Hatch number two fills with water and begins pulling the ship down even further.
32:40By the time she reaches hatch number three, and that is filling, the ship is well on her way to the bottom.
32:46Investigators believe the evidence proves their theory.
32:52The disaster and the deaths of everyone on board could have been prevented if only the crew had properly secured the small bosun's hatch.
33:00Families aren't going to like this.
33:05As a courtesy, the families are told the news before it's released to the press.
33:09When we delivered the presentation to the families, there was an astonishment in their face.
33:16I'm sorry, but the pictures indicate the hatch wasn't secured.
33:23The hatch wasn't secured, what does that mean, Mick?
33:27It seems like bad seamanship.
33:30Bad seamanship?
33:32The bosun hatch wasn't secured.
33:35No, that's wrong.
33:36No, you're wrong about that.
33:37Evidence that pointed towards maybe there was a human error, I think really fuelled the fire for these people.
33:43They said, no, these people were professional.
33:45There's just no way that kind of a crew would do something that would put themselves at peril.
33:50You're wrong about this and I'm going to bloody prove it.
33:52I trusted the crew.
33:54They wouldn't put their lives in danger.
33:57You spent all these years not being able to grieve properly.
34:01Leave, thank you.
34:03Fighting, campaigning.
34:05Doing whatever you can, whatever you have to.
34:10And you come back and you say, bad seamanship.
34:13Just look at the pictures.
34:15The hatch wasn't left over.
34:17We'll prove it.
34:19In the search for proof, the Derbyshire's former chief officer may already have the answer.
34:24I knew for sure that the conclusions that had been drawn so far were wrong.
34:30We're wrong.
34:37Former chief officer Nigel Malpass doesn't believe crew error caused the Derbyshire to sink.
34:42He was supposed to be aboard that final trip, but a last minute crew change saved him.
34:49Some people have said I'm the luckiest person alive, but in fact I should have been on the Derbyshire when she was lost.
34:56I'd been with most of that crew the trip before.
35:02I knew all the crew very well.
35:06Malpass is certain the investigators have it wrong.
35:08He doesn't believe the crew would ever leave the forward hatch unsecured.
35:13Anybody that knew the ship knew that you couldn't have drawn that conclusion.
35:18One of the things that convinced me when I saw the photograph of the bosun's store was the bits of heaving line hanging off the dogs that she'd been well secured.
35:27When Malpass was chief officer on the Derbyshire, he made sure the crew knew how to secure the bosun's hatch with a lashing known as a cat's cradle.
35:39We put a cat's cradle on that bosun's store.
35:43The whole essence of that being there was to stop those wingnuts opening.
35:47And I have no doubts that Derbyshire went through that procedure.
35:50The testimony of Nigel Malpass, along with some strands of rope fastened to the bosun's hatch, effectively throw the investigators findings into doubt.
36:03Something else must have caused the flooding in the bow that set off the disaster.
36:08For help, the High Corps turns to Marin, the Maritime Research Institute of the Netherlands.
36:14Here, they can simulate the behavior of all kinds of ships, in nearly any sea condition.
36:21In fact, we were the only facility in the world that could replicate the wave condition that happened during the accident.
36:30We could make any kind of waves, long-crested waves, short-crested waves, that means waves coming from different directions.
36:37And this was a very, very unique capability at that time.
36:40The team at Marin are tasked to recreate the conditions of Typhoon Orchid, and test its impact on the Derbyshire.
36:50They need to know if something other than crew error could have set off the disaster.
36:55It was a very large expectation from the families.
36:58We really felt the pressure that we really had to perform.
37:00We want the truth. If it is a bad seamanship, fair enough.
37:06As long as we can prove without a shadow of a doubt, someone made a mistake. We'll accept it.
37:11For the Derbyshire test, the tank is programmed with detailed meteorological information about Typhoon Orchid.
37:18A precise 4.5-meter replica is loaded with sensors to track the stresses the Typhoon put on the ship and its forward hatches.
37:28It's a scale model, but the geometry must be very, very accurate.
37:35We also model the propulsion train because the speed of the ship was of importance.
37:40The loads would be different if the ship was sailing at zero knots or two knots, four knots.
37:44One of the key ideas is to have an unbiased impression of the behavior of the ship in storm condition.
37:56In our basin, the models have everything that is relevant for the behavior and safety of a normal ship.
38:03Hour after hour, the Derbyshire replica is driven through the very worst of Typhoon Orchid.
38:08Even with huge waves breaking over her bow, sensors detect no sign of failure from the forward hatches.
38:17During the model test, we saw, of course, a lot of dramatic event like waves coming on the forward deck and breaking on the hatch cover.
38:25But the ship should not have sunk with these type of conditions.
38:29So, it had to be something else.
38:32If neither the cargo hatches nor the bosun's hatch failed at this point in the storm,
38:38where did the seawater that filled up the bow come from?
38:42That was the big question.
38:43What was the opening of the ship that made it possible to lower the bow of the vessel in a such way that you would expose the forward part of the ship to the waves?
38:52Weeks of tests turn up few clues until the team turns to a theory so unlikely it hardly seemed worth considering.
39:02Air vents on the forward deck lead down to open storage areas below.
39:07Wreckage photos reveal the caps that keep water out of the vents were damaged by the heavy seas.
39:14Did the damaged air vents let in enough seawater to cause flooding in the bow?
39:19People realized that Thorpeak had been flooded, but many people found it hard to believe that that would have an influence on the loads that were experienced by the hatch cover.
39:30But we thought, well, who knows? Who knows the rate of water coming in? Just let's test it and measure it.
39:35While the bulk carrier industry waits for answers, with thousands of seafarers' lives at risk, the final test begins.
39:48Two decades of debate over what caused the Derbyshire tragedy and the deaths of 44 people may finally be close to an answer.
40:02Investigators are about to test an unconventional theory.
40:06Were leaky air vents on the deck enough to trigger the disaster?
40:11We proposed to mimic those open holes on the model, but the question was, are these openings big enough?
40:16Can we prove that the timeframe over which the ship was exposed, that that's long enough that it fills completely?
40:24The air vents are so small, they only let in a trickle of water compared to the size of a ship.
40:31But Typhoon Orchid lasted more than two days, long enough for that trickle to become a flood.
40:39We were able to show that the ingress rate was more than enough to explain that the entire Thorpeak was full of water.
40:46Once flooded, the bow sinks deeper into oncoming waves.
40:50And the large cargo hatches are hammered with more and more water.
40:57Within five to six hours, you would get waves that would create loading in excess of what is admissible for hatch cover.
41:05It was a big surprise for everybody to realize that so tiny little holes could produce this chain of evidence,
41:13and this was really the breakthrough.
41:15The discovery is the missing link investigators needed.
41:21They now know what caused the 20-year-old tragedy.
41:26It began when the Derbyshire's captain and crew were enduring their second day of Typhoon Orchid.
41:3220 degrees starboard.
41:3420 degrees to starboard, captain.
41:36Easy does it.
41:37They're unaware of the danger unfolding under the forward deck.
41:42The bent layer caps are gone.
41:44Water now filling into the bosun's locker and into the lower stores.
41:48And from the bridge, you can't see this.
41:50You'd be very lucky if you could see it at all.
41:52Maybe we have the foremast light on.
41:54They may be able to just make it out, but you can't see that it's slowing in its rise and its fall.
41:59It's not as high now.
42:01The Derbyshire has endured more than two days of pounding seas.
42:06Now we have waves spilling over the bow.
42:12And making it down as far as the number one hatch.
42:14We're gonna feel this one.
42:24One after the other, the nine enormous cargo hatches give way.
42:29We're losing her!
42:31We're gonna lose her!
42:34You wouldn't quite believe what you're seeing.
42:37While you're thinking that, the ship's going down.
42:40We're behind the ship!
42:41We're behind the ship!
42:43Number two would have gone.
42:49What's going on?
42:51Followed by number three.
42:56Number four, number five, number six.
42:59Abandon ship!
43:03Number seven, number eight, and number nine.
43:06A rapid sequence.
43:11By that time, it's too late.
43:12The fate of everyone on board is sealed.
43:25The ship sank so quickly that no one was able to send a message.
43:30The investigation estimated within the span of a few moments.
43:34On November 8th, 2000, the High Court inquiry in London concludes that the Derbyshire sank due to waves destroying air pipes in the bow, triggering uncontrollable flooding.
43:52The one thing that we've lived with now for over 12 months is the fact that the assessors blamed the crew for the loss of the ship, and today they've been completely exonerated.
44:01The court delivers new safety recommendations for bulk carriers.
44:05They include a requirement to install devices to control flooding in the forward section, and the construction of significantly stronger hatch covers.
44:16The cover design almost doubled in strength, was adopted by the international community, and hatch covers and bulk carriers around the world are much safer because of the Derbyshire.
44:26In 2004, Paul Lambert and the Derbyshire Family Association's efforts to improve safety are recognized when they're awarded the Marine Society's Thomas Gray Silver Medal.
44:39And I think that's one of the more remarkable stories about this is their continued persistence to get to the bottom of what happened.
44:48I believe that ship tried to keep them seafarers safe.
44:55And in the end, it was just too much. She was just too tired.
44:58She'd lost her trim. Her head was constantly underwater.
45:05And you were just waiting for that. Hatch breaking wave.
45:09And when it come, she just couldn't do any more.
45:12I don't want to do any more.
45:13I don't want to do any more.
45:42I don't want to do any more.
45:43I just want to do any more.
45:44I don't want to do any more.
45:49Maybe
Comments