Anatomy of Disaster - Season 2 Episode 5 - Ferocious Oceans

the ocean the violent energy of nature cannot be tamed even the largest chips travel at the mercy of the wind and waves no bull gun earth is so strong that a sea storm can't destroy it and for even the most seasoned sailors the ship is all that stands between life and death all I can do is each time resurface was to tell her when to take a deep breath and hang on once in the water a few survived journey with us aboard sea tossed ships into the turbulent world where storms are born nature at its fiercest [Music] [Applause] [Music] here again the night fair [Music] as long as man has braved the ocean the sea has given and taken away we think of the violence we think of the drama of the oceans but in its simplest terms what is really doing is providing us with this very moderate climate which really was the key for the development of life on Earth leading oceanographer bill patzert has first-hand experience with the tempestuous nature of the sea whose great power starts with the warmth of the Sun the great ocean currents and the massive weather systems that move around the earth their primary role is to take heat from the tropics to the poles and in the process dried the very violent weather systems the Pacific Ocean is normally one of the world's least violent the islands of New Zealand are nestled in the Pacific Southwest waters they are a pleasure sailors mecca [Music] alluring enough to keep Australians Robin and Bill Forbes island-hopping year after year aboard their beloved 40-foot sailboat renfa [Music] the forbs are confident sailors they join a regatta headed for Tonga an island far to the north of New Zealand [Music] ninety-five percent of the time the world's oceans obtained that's what the Forbes expect and they picked the middle of the year because usually it's this time of the year as far as the weather goes in fact well I think before we left we're told that we probably end up having made a most the way because it was expected of like Queens but an unseasonable storm is building as the Forbes sale for Tonga high and low-pressure systems 600 miles to the north are clashing when air masses collide bringing differences in temperature and moisture together atmospheric instability and storms result the movement of air around the globe performs a vital function it redistributes the world's heat warm moist air from the oceans tropics rises and expands creating wind that moves toward the poles where it cools and descends these winds push the oceans great waters in vast circuits called gyres which also transfer heat the wind causes waves to form as well although many people believe that waves move water across the ocean surface waves also propel water downwards in a slow circular motion we can think of the atmosphere as a really it's a giant ocean of air moving all around us and what you'll see is the ocean of air gripping the surface of the ocean of water in providing us with these small little ways which we call cat paws and these ways which start just a few inches tall and build to tens of feet and eventually in extreme cases to 50 to 100 the larger the way stronger this storm off the island of Fiji a storm is battering the coastline with powerful waves and 100 mile-per-hour winds then continuing on a collision course with the Forbes and their sailboat we heard over the radio with the weather forecast that there was a low up off Fiji this thing was coming down our way I quite frankly thought oh well it'll hit off to Australia and it's in the middle of winter so it won't develop into enemy but the intensifying storm doesn't change course and doesn't slow down the wind was picking up and we were aware that the storm is coming our way and we just took all the precautions necessary with briefing the south and getting their boat ready within hours the ferocious storm reaches them and engulfs their boats these waves now like the steam train come over the boat you look up and he's this breaking wave coming down at you immense waves the size of a six-story building pummeled their boat this part is 55 feet is from water that up there we could say that the waves were coming at us equivalently at the top of the mouth the regatta yachts are helpless in the face of these waves a distress call goes out New Zealand Navy commander Larry Robbins receives the Mayday call and gives orders for a new course but finding the precise location of a few sailboats in nine million square miles of chaotic ocean is a monumental task the Navy vessel heads directly into the heart of the storm you just looked around and you could just see all this water breaking the word that I often use to describe it is horrendous it was dreadful weather really was but on board renfa bill and robin have no idea help is on the way there's nothing anybody else could do for you at that time as far as we can send we were at thereby self after enduring a sleepless night in the South Pacific storm hundreds of miles from land an Australian couple is growing more anxious there had been up pretty well all through the night and trying to keep the boat upright and steering them and I guess I was a New Zealand Navy ship is headed in Bill Forbes direction the storm is also affecting commander Larry Robbins rescue effort everything was creaking and groaning and it was really very monotonous no one was getting any sleep the two vessels are just 15 miles apart but the cresting waves hide the sailboat from the Navy's radar the ferocity of the waves the captain faces is determined by several factors three key ingredients are fetch the area over which a storm will blow the duration how long it flows and largest waves are dependent on the strength of the wind so it's betch duration and intensity in the midst of the immense waves a mysterious light appears around and this green light everywhere and it's not like a lightning flash miles away on the Navy ship an officer thinks he sees a light in the distance now I was called to the bridge by the officer of the watch he said that he'd seen what he thought was a flare commander Robin sends out a message to try and learn the source of the light we put out a call on the VHF we didn't expect any response but and as I turned away from the VHF set suddenly crackled into life [Music] this is rainflow Maranatha we got you a visual at the moment by coincidence the strange light has put them in communication neither robins nor forbes can explain the might perhaps it was a meteorological phenomenon such as ball lightning come right to 275 as the navy ship approaches commander Robbins tells them to prepare to abandon ship robbing Forbes hesitates Ramtha is their home it holds everything they own but moments later an enormous wave nearly flips the boat their rudder is disabled [Music] we're saying no thanks and this wave comes along gives to keeping the britches and says take the ride commander Robbins prepares a plan of action but he doesn't dare bring the boats too close together we were rolling so much that I really felt that we probably roll on top of them commander Robbins devises an ingenious plan the Navy cutter will fire a line carrying two harnesses to Robyn and bill we want you to put these harnesses on we'll put the horn and we want you to jump into the water and then we'll pull you on board sounds simple doesn't it ever I thought you got to be kidding but there is no other option it takes five attempts before a line he lands across Ravis deck studying herself as best she can Robin inches her way down the day [Music] she struggles to her knees and pulls in the line then upon her feet she staggers her way across the deck grasping tightly to their lifeline [Music] bill helps her into her harness I knew I wasn't going to be able to get into a harness on my own so bill put his on and helped me into mine then as he reached up to tighten the toggle so that Robin wouldn't slip morrow I took this tremendous role we could see always a slow motion the tension coming out of this line and working its way across towards ramp that it could have only been a few seconds but it was absolutely slow motion we saw them bounce four times down the deck of the captain where and then they just fell in the water I'm looking up through the water and I have to admit that that was the time when I guess the thought of drowning went through but the other mechanism says well now I haven't learned all I've learned just to drown out here in the middle of the ocean the deck crew saw there in the water and just pulled them in bill and Robin are dragged through the water towards the ship but over a minute has passed all I could do was each time a surface was to tell her when to take a deep breath and hang on [Music] and the next time we come up with a looking up at them honor why [Music] we're on board [Music] there was a spontaneous cheer because everybody was thoroughly relieved when we got this couple but there was this tremendous feeling of humility because it could very well have been any one of us in that sort of situation bill and Robin have survived their ordeal without serious injury but as they depart the forbes realize that they may never see their beloved home again we really didn't even have time to to see where ramp the Y saw but that was it though I felt that the boat probably we wouldn't say it again ten days after the South Pacific storm the Mona y crew is honored for its daring rescue while surfers rushed to the beaches in California huge waves are rolling in it's the same phenomenal energy that almost killed bill in Forbes thousands of miles away they're really the international travelers of the ocean these giant swells and they're really transferring energy all across the globe the oceans of the atmosphere are the essence of life on earth but the Pacific has one more miracle in store for the forest not after we were taken off the boat that I heard that ramps had been found the boat turns up just 80 miles from bill and Robin's original destination the island of Tonga very good I mean we had we'd given up or I suppose we'd looked at the fact that okay we'd lost it and never thanked aboard their home once again the Forbes set sail for Australia their Odyssey with the worst that the Seas wind and waves can deliver is behind them I guess I don't blame the ocean I mean it's it's all just experience the bill used to say all experience is good experience there's gonna be times again when the way that comes up but I'll deal with that when that happens [Music] the frozen wasteland of the Greenland coast is covered with ice 12 months a year this part of the North Atlantic can strike fear in the heart and even the toughest Mariner these areas are very hostile areas there can be storms there any time of the year and these icebergs they break off the glaciers they flow into the sea and by the movement of the water the waves they break off and then they go with the current they drift down south Eden is the skipper of a ship that is an iceberg country in the fall of 1995 the waters are called the Denmark Straits between Greenland and Iceland I wasn't very happy you know about the Murphy's Law if something can't go wrong but then again somebody has to do a job augs vessel is a floating research laboratory named after Explorer James Cook's ship resolution she's four hundred and seventy feet long 70 feet wide with extra steel in her hull to handle arctic conditions [Music] iceberg spotters keep a lookout from the deck of the navigation bridge where ankh studies his charts of the ice ridden coast with his second mate and chief navigator my court we were there approximately 20 nautical miles of the Greenland coast who gave it the name iceberg alley' was quite impressive these birds they can be several million tons you don't want to get hit by the results are catastrophic at the slowest of speeds that was our primary concern the whole time we were up there was ice approaching you're in a very remote if anything does happen the expert hit yet you know the chances are slim and none to get into town everybody knows the story about the Titanic aunt vessel conducts important research into why the crust of the earth is pulling apart below these freezing rocks the ship has a massive drilling rig on board for pulling up core samples from the seafloor [Applause] the sedimentary samples obtained by the research vessel and shed new light on the Earth's distant past there are 200 hands on board from Roughnecks who work the drill operation to scientists that handle the core samples once cut up the cores are analyzed the process allows scientists to verify and challenge scientific assumptions about the geologic evolutions of the planet but now something is approaching the ship that will put all their lives in jeopardy I can remember watching the barometer drop maybe from around a thousand ten or fifteen right down into the low 900 in just a matter of 12 to 18 hours when you have that much barometric drop in such a short period of time the winds are extremely strong what's coming is a nor'easter born in the tropical Atlantic this monster is feeding off the warm waters of the Gulf Stream that flows northward toward Greenland and the research ships position [Music] the nor'easter arrives packing winds as fierce as hurricanes these storms are more dreaded by Mariners because they can last several days as the storm intensifies one of the researchers on board begins to record the event with her video camera I think we were experiencing winds very close to and maybe in a little in excess of a hundred miles an hour and the waves were so high 60 70 feet and the only thing what we could be was what I told her guys go with the flow [Music] captain onks nickname is the flying dutchman a skipper of myth doomed to forever sail rough seas monks been with the ship every one of her 20 years the problem is that if you have high waves the smaller icebergs you can't detect them anymore on the radar because you don't see the members of the way another problem is such a violent storm there's so much foam in the air that your visibility is restricted unk's one advantage is his ships dynamic positioning system created to hold her steady over a drilling site the ship has 14 propellers it's the only thing keeping the ship from wavering of course but at full speed ahead with the thrust of 19,000 horsepower the force of the storm is pushing the ship backwards two and a half knots backwards Fowler's going 100 these waves were sold hide powerful that easily they can move the bulk and British ship the outside if a ship turns broadside to the waves it risks flipping over when a ship is lying broadside to waves or in the trough there is the potential for a capsize to occur 7.06 seconds for three that time so it's about the same naval architect Gerry stensgaard uses a wave tank to test vessel models and simulated high seas he works at the ocean engineering center in British Columbia the greatest risk of capsizing is when the rocking of a boat and the movement of the waves sync up if it were broadside and the wave frequencies matched the rolling frequencies that is a situation which could be very dangerous just because of the cumulative rolling effect which could ultimately you zeldin capsize there she goes understanding the danger captain ANCA cannot turn back he holds course in the howling storm for fifty sleepless hours the nearest safe port is almost two thousand miles away you lookin at walls of water the ball comes up and you see on the air the ball comes down and then the waves were breaking over the ball and the deck was totally covered with foam and then the window on the bridge got smashed although slinked and water blowing inside and I saw it I was up to my knees in water the sheer force of the wave has crashed through the bridges bulletproof glass as all hands rushed to deal with what has become a crisis situation salt water has damaged vital navigation equipment that thing about it right behind this window with the two radars those are your eyes without your eyes is definitely no way that you could see any icebergs and I was lucky that I was not standing at my normal spot behind the Charter otherwise the glass would have invited my face everybody was quite tense a lot of them were scared I was joking and I think that helped him love there were moments that I told myself god I hope this is over soon and I hope we get out of this safely the crew men have to go out on the deck and board up the broken window to keep more sea water from pouring in they had to use lifelines but still with lifelines big wave comes over maybe you weren't washed over the side but you could still we smashed against the superstructure of the ship and work you very badly but there was nothing else we could do we had to send out people in order to survive all of us second mate Mike Orton is one of the volunteers so one thing that really sticks out in my mind going out on the deck that day to repair that window was that I guess maybe every minute and a half the big Slugger Siwon never felt seawater that cold before my life and just chill you to the bone what I thought of the most was a big wall of water hitting me this splashing against the wall breaking both your legs or arms or something like that possibly even then you know rinsing me off the day [Music] after a three-hour struggle the men come in from the howling storm mission accomplished and the fierce winds begin to abate now the crew ventures onto the deck to survey the destruction debris is everywhere a lifeboat is cracked in useless a ladder is bent beyond recognition the faint Locker that was used to the deck 15 stalks that one was totally wrecked oh man was that a mess it was just everywhere it caved in the whole side of this 20-foot steel container completely smashed as the ship limps back to the port of Halifax everyone realizes how close they've come to tragedy there's not really much romance about being in the storm I think we can all say that we were very lucky that we survived yes the North Sea is a place of tragic legend of men setting sail never to return coxswain Hewitt Clarke has faced and survived this danger for 30 years rushing to rescue sailors from the north seas I see grass as coxswain or captain he pilots the royal national rescue ship Mary and Jane Vernon she's one of a fleet of what are called lifeboats available at a moment's notice these lifeboats are extremely rugged and very maneuverable capable of withstanding the punishing conditions of the North Sea here off the northern coast of Scotland the war North Atlantic Current meets cold water from the north tides and winds contribute to what the locals call confused seas with tides and currents coming at all angles north sea shipping is vital to Europe's economy and that most valuable commodity oil is plentiful beneath the waters off shore many environmental disasters have been caused by these treacherous waters I've been to ships before on the rocks you could just hear them terrible past it's November in 1997 coxswain Clark scans the horizon for signs of a brewing storm his lifeboat plies the waters off the Shetland Islands 200 miles north of Scotland oceanographer bill patzert knows the North Sea invest even the most Able Seaman during the winter the North Atlantic tends to be one of the most violent for weather of all the oceans the very cold dry air that comes off the Canadian continent it's so dry and so cold it just captures moisture out of the North Atlantic and really gets fueled up with moisture and heat the result are these very powerful storms that make their way into the North Sea it's in these conditions that the engines of the green lily a local cargo ship suddenly failed high seas push the fishing vessel toward the jagged Shetland coastline a few miles away there are 15 men stranded on board coxswain Clark and his rescue crews scrambled into action as the lifeboat heads out a Coast Guard helicopter hovers above the green Lily a tugboat tries to keep the crippled ship from crashing into the rocky shore captain Lori Johnson is at the tugs helm [Music] from the southeastern which tends to increase the sea effect users may not wake up very very quickly after 30 minutes of plowing through stormy seas and massive waves coxswain Clark's lifeboat arrives on the scene when we arrived I was a very heavy sea that was just a cool conditions they watch as the tugboat struggles to attach a steel cable called the towing gear to the cargo ship and pull her away from the rocks that are now less than a mile away it's a tricky procedure you've ever get close to pasta dough in here there's so an element of danger you know I've I want the two vessels to come into contact you can have serious damage to both vital minutes slipped by at last the tug manages to attach the towing breaking swell is make the job increasingly dangerous in shallow waters like these waves break high and fast as a wave moves towards Shore it grows steeper and steeper until the crest spills over with tremendous weight in momentum the breaking waves are pulling the tugboat in the cargo ship apart straining the cable that connects them finally it snaps the tugboat captain Laurie Johnson reports the bad news to the lifeboat now nothing can stop the ship from drifting onto the rocks it's up to the lifeboat to move in and save the crew I've been under lots of jobs and what weather but not to go along so I would take people out from that condition I will approach it now I will attempt to come alongside it must have you come down on the deck help the sea is thrown in one way and pulling you the next and the ship was rolling it's very difficult to get the boat placed exactly where you want in the moments that the two decks are closed the lifeboat crea pulls a man aboard this is repeated five times until a huge wave crashes on the deck and that's when I decided it's too dangerous I decided that Douglas we have done all we could do unfortunately with only minutes left before the ship runs aground a last lift effort is launched from the chopper which has been hovering overhead but as the lifeboat circles nearby they hear over the radio that a rescue worker who've been lowered from the chopper has been swept into the sea the sea has planted it it's a very sad experience you know you can't do anything for my sister if I go straight on arrival back to shore the rescue crew finds solace and the fact that 15 lives were saved but as the green Lily breaks up on the rocks all hands involved in the rescue are reminded once more that the sea that provides their livelihoods can exact a heavy price that's a very thin line between success and failure and suddenly this happens and you realize it can't be successful every time you've got to respect the scene the mistakes are made very more than half the oil consumed on earth is transported over the world's oceans in tankers like the Catena P headed round the tip of Africa in April of 1992 most of the world's three and a half thousand oil tankers are the pinnacle of modern ship repair like all ships they have an Achilles heel a ship is definitely strong and rigid in a sense but it's not strong and rigid in the same way that across a river would be in that the ship is supported throughout its length by the water if that support is removed part of the hull is unsupported or insufficiently supported and stresses the fabric of the hull and be too much for it to astound and it will break loaded with sixty-six thousand tons of heavy fuel oil the Catena P is headed for some of the wildest waters of maritime legend where three of the world's great oceans the Atlantic the Indian and the Antarctic collide their meeting can be catastrophic the world's worst tanker disaster occurred here in 1983 spilling seven times more oil than the Exxon Valdez David Timnath assesses oil tanker damage for Penta marine in Cape Town South Africa his family has worked on the sea for countless generations the Cape itself is known as the Cape of storms for good reason in the winter months you gets very severe storms occurring off the coast strong winds which build up the swells which is a bad area to sell for storms high latitude winds in the southern hemisphere can be fierce so fierce that Mariners crossing the southern latitudes call them the Roaring Forties furious 50s and screaming 60s these winds pushed tremendous waves colliding with these wind-whipped waves indicated here by white arrows is one of the world's great currents this current is driven by the gyre of the Indian Ocean and is marked here with a red arrow currents oppose the very very strong waves being generated by the strong winds and what they'll do is they'll steep in these giant waves and in extreme circumstances we can get waves as high as eighty to a hundred feet and these are what we call the killer waves of the Antarctic tankers and other long ships can be badly damaged by these rogue or freak waves oil tankers in some ways they're even more vulnerable than the smaller ships if a huge trough opened up under the bow of the ship so the bow is basically jutting out into into the air then the structure might be unable to withstand the forces and it would break now inspector Timnath gets urgent word that one of these killer waves may have hit the Catena P Nicole came through from the Cape Town office back there was a ship in distress off the North Paulding Zulu Coast Timnath on board a helicopter is headed for the stricken ship its crew has dropped anchor and abandon ship and fear for their lives but while the crew is safe the Cesar Khan or M is already leaking the vessel except could be seemed to be listing to starboard and deep in the water the severe damage to the lips of the vessel we decided that we needed to get on board and ascertain much closer to the damage once on board David begins to evaluate the damage and the possibility of transferring the oil off the ship we're looking at war III Center cracked by the winch midships looks like we've got stress on the bulkhead it was pure nerves you just did not know what condition the ship had been in before was it now ready to sink the helicopter had taken off and we've turned to my cooter so if anything had gone wrong at the time crying all the way across onto the port side for an area of ten meters which indicated again that the vessel was actually sagging that is he was bending downwards there was under stress ten myth decides a ship to ship oil transfer must be attempted but first the buckling tanker needs to be towed 200 miles further out to sea to lessen potential environmental damage one of the largest Salvage tugs in the world the John Ross begins the long and delicate journey placing their lives on the line Tenma thin a crew of six remain on board to prepare the transfer five days at the damage on the ship was still extending in the deck your mind races and every single possibility ship going down you're getting sucked down by it's your life jackets leave your bed you really don't sleep at night in the early dawn hours David is sleepless with concern when the situation goes from worse to disastrous there was a dull loud bang there's like a door being slammed in the background he goes to investigate making his way to midship Mike maybe had gone ten meters when there was a almighty third and then the deck just gave Wade actually buckle they went banana shape the vessel was breaking up as we stood there natural reaction then is to just run I raced it to the accommodation having abandoned ship shit's gonna go down it's gonna flood Timnath flees to a vessel alongside the tanker shouting at his men to hurry come on it's got a few men in there get in you could see the water creeping up the decks as she was settling in the ship goes under yours worried that maybe you're going to get sucked down we're right alongside the Catena P Leo which is spitting out five meters into the air is pure crude oil you could spell it the sea was two meters thick you know as far as we could see as far as the eye could see on the horizon the Lucas arm it was just a horrendous sight speed 16 million gallons of crude are flowing from the sinking tankard the incident is one of 26 tanker spares to occur on the world's oceans this particular year as the oil reaches the shores of Mozambique an environmental disaster is declared fishing waters and mangrove swamps are contaminated only the swiftness of the Agulhas current carrying some oil away from shore protects the coast from catastrophe safely back on board the super tug the salvage experts witness a once-in-a-lifetime site the death throes of an oil tanker the angle of the deck just got greater and greater you could see that the vessel was still connected it was looking like a banana the angle from 2030 degrees 443 is 50 degrees then she slowly went under the water was a spurt of spray as the air was expelled at the sea level and then she completely went under it's a sad feeling for I think any Mariner to see a ship goes go down whether it's your ship or somebody else's shoe it's just the way that Mariners are [ __ ] it's like a home to you najran is no when they venture out to see that they are afloat and alone restores are born that when the oceans turn ferocious their safety cannot be guaranteed there's one element here that sellers at sea are always falling for - this is the unknowable the rogue wave the particularly violent star that really quite unpredictable never underestimate the see never underestimate the elements you always have to keep in mind that the elements can to get out of control [Music] you

Channel: Anatomy of Disaster

Views: 2,367,700

Rating: 4.5151691 out of 5

Keywords: Anatomy of disaster, Disasters, Storm, Raging River, Water, Dam, Ocean

Id: DkIuBUVJHQk

Length: 46min 23sec (2783 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 19 2016