Wreck of M/T Bow Mariner

 shipwreck, tanker (ship)

The Bow Mariner was a Singapore-flagged chemical tanker en route from Linden, N.J. to Texas City, TX half-loaded with a cargo of 3.2 million gallons ethanol when she suddenly exploded and sank at this location during the night of February 28th, 2004.

The Yugoslavian-built Bow Mariner entered service in 1982 and up to her untimely demise had a unremarkable service life, hauling liquid chemicals for a variety of owners between a variety of ports all over the world. In what would be her final years of service, she was assigned to a service loop which took her between the refineries of New Jersey, Houston and Holland and back.

In mid February 2004, the Bow Mariner made her scheduled call at KMI Linden in New Jersey, where she unloaded approximately half of her cargo of industrial-grade Ethanol, also known as MTBE (methyl tert butyl ether). Upon her departure from New York harbor, her Captain allegedly ordered her crew to begin the usual process of hold cleaning to remove the residue of MBTE from the ships cargo tanks, but also ordered the vents to the cargo holds to be opened, in flagrant violation of accepted security procedures. As the crew continued to spray the ships's holds with seawater, oxygen began to mix with the MBTE vapors, eventually reaching it's saturation point and creating a incredibly dangerous flammable vapor, awaiting a spark to ignite.

At approximately 6:15pm ships in the vicinity of the Bow Mariner reported seeing a massive fireball on the horizon, one captain stating "the Sun was setting in the West, but the fire on the Bow Mariner made it look like another sun was rising in the East". A tanker on a similar course and several miles behind the Bow Mariner reported seeing the ship wreathed in a circle of flames and sinking. The US Coast Guard received its first and only distress call from the Bow Mariner at 6:30pm, when a terrified officer sent out a brief mayday as the ship quickly went down. Despite rapid response by US Coast Guard Aircraft and several ships in the area, only 6 of 27 crew were found alive, and 18 of the crew were never seen again. The Bow Mariner spilled its entire cargo of 3.2 million barrels of MBTE into the ocean, along with a significant portion of its heavy fuel oil and lubricating oils. The seriousness of the resulting oil spill was lessened by the tendency of MBTE to evaporate and favorable winds and cold water blowing the heavy oil out to sea where it would congeal and sink into cooler, deeper waters.

The wreck of the Bow Mariner was discovered and charted several days after her sinking by the NOAA Hydrographic Survey Ship Rude, which made several side-scan sonar images of the wreck, lying on an even keel in 258 feet of water 50 miles off the coast of Virginia. The sonar images from Rude revealed catastrophic damage to the Bow Mariner, which was missing the majority of the steel plating which made up the walls of it's hull and cargo tanks. The damage clearly indicated that the volatile MBTE in the tanks of the Bow Mariner had exploded from the inside out, taking the majority of her hull with them and instantly killing any crew in the tanks, on deck or outside of the superstructure.

Several court cases are currently ongoing involving the sinking of the Bow Mariner, and though the wreck lies in international waters, it is still property of its owners and the removal of artifacts is illegal under international law.

capt-jt.com/photos_bow_mariner.htm
www.piersystem.com/go/doc/651/104064/
www.marinesurveying.eu/index4.php?mode=viewid&post_id=3...