What Is Ship Grounding
What Is Ship Grounding?
Oceans are synonymous with great depths. There are oceans with depths, double the height of Mt. Everest. Similarly, there are some parts of oceans which are so shallow that you can easily walk through them. So what happens to a ship when it sails through such areas? Let's find out.
Ship Grounding
A marine accident has various types and one such type is ship grounding. The depth of sea varies from port to port. Not all the ports can allow ships of all sizes to enter. Bigger a ship, higher the difficulty in docking it to a port. For e.g. take New York, one of the busiest ports has such a low draft those VLCCs and ships with higher tonnage cannot enter the port. Sometimes even if the port is capable of receiving large vessels with higher draft, unnoticeable silt and mud gets accumulated near the ports, reducing the draft. Thus a ship with higher draft when enters such port gets stranded due to the chocked draft. Grounding is also caused due to rotational tides. There are many ports around the world that allow ships to enter only during high tides due to the problem of draft. An unpredictable change in tides, when the ship is docked at a port, can lead to grounding of the ship.
Impact on the ship
Ship grounding leads to the impact of the bottom part of a ship onto the ocean bed, resulting in damage to the ship structure. Ship grounding can be of two types - Soft grounding and Wallop Grounding.
A soft grounding does not lead to adverse effects on a ship. But this doesn't mean it has to be completely neglected. Proper needs to be made as soon as the ship reaches the nearest port. In case there is a doubt about the condition of the ship, it should be prevented from sailing till a thorough inspection is not carried out by the experts or a classification society.
On the contrary, wallop grounding can lead to heavy damage to the hull and submerged part of the ship. This might lead to serious cracks in the ship structure, resulting in water
Oceans are synonymous with great depths. There are oceans with depths, double the height of Mt. Everest. Similarly, there are some parts of oceans which are so shallow that you can easily walk through them. So what happens to a ship when it sails through such areas? Let's find out.
Ship Grounding
A marine accident has various types and one such type is ship grounding. The depth of sea varies from port to port. Not all the ports can allow ships of all sizes to enter. Bigger a ship, higher the difficulty in docking it to a port. For e.g. take New York, one of the busiest ports has such a low draft those VLCCs and ships with higher tonnage cannot enter the port. Sometimes even if the port is capable of receiving large vessels with higher draft, unnoticeable silt and mud gets accumulated near the ports, reducing the draft. Thus a ship with higher draft when enters such port gets stranded due to the chocked draft. Grounding is also caused due to rotational tides. There are many ports around the world that allow ships to enter only during high tides due to the problem of draft. An unpredictable change in tides, when the ship is docked at a port, can lead to grounding of the ship.
Impact on the ship
Ship grounding leads to the impact of the bottom part of a ship onto the ocean bed, resulting in damage to the ship structure. Ship grounding can be of two types - Soft grounding and Wallop Grounding.
A soft grounding does not lead to adverse effects on a ship. But this doesn't mean it has to be completely neglected. Proper needs to be made as soon as the ship reaches the nearest port. In case there is a doubt about the condition of the ship, it should be prevented from sailing till a thorough inspection is not carried out by the experts or a classification society.
On the contrary, wallop grounding can lead to heavy damage to the hull and submerged part of the ship. This might lead to serious cracks in the ship structure, resulting in water