Wednesday, July 02, 2008 Group wants Sulpicio to show ship design
THE United Filipino Seafarers Federation, a maritime labor federation, said that Sulpicio Lines Inc. and many other shipping firms in the country have altered the design of their ships, making them vulnerable to distress.
Engineer Nelson Ramirez, the federation president, said that changing the ships’ design can alter its center of gravity, which is computed and fixed by the architects who designed and built them.
Ramirez who worked as ship engineer with international and domestic shipping for 20 years said that on mv Princess of the Stars, he was told that the ship was originally built to have four floors, but Sulpicio made it into a seven-storey ship to accommodate more passengers.
This is dangerous, he said. He compares it to a four-storey building where the foundation is only good to hold the four floors. Adding three more floors will weaken the foundation and the building becomes vulnerable to earthquake.
Ramirez added there were already several Senate investigations and board of marine inquiries, but all these resulted to nothing.
“Until now, finger-pointing is the name of the game. It could be Philippine Coast Guard blaming Marina (Maritime Industry Authority), or Marina blaming Coast Guard, or ship-owner blaming the typhoon. But nobody owns the typhoon,” Ramirez said.
Sinking
Ramirez said that the investigators of the sinking of mv Princess of the Stars must dig into the root cause of the problem.
“First and foremost, are these vessels designed to sail on open seas or is it designed to sail only on smooth inland waters? Investigators must look into it especially that the upturned ship is second-hand when imported by Sulpicio from Japan,” Ramirez said.
He said that if Princess of the Stars is designed for inland waters, then it should not have been allowed to sail in open seas passing Sibuyan. On the other hand, if the ship is designed for open seas, it’s hard to believe that it sank during typhoon Frank.
“A ship is not designed to sink in such a weather condition,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said that the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), chaired by Commodore Ramon Liwag, must order Sulpicio to produce the ship’s plan and design and its picture when it was brought to the Philippines.
“If the BMI will find out that the ship was altered or modified, then it may be the main cause of the tragedy and typhoon Frank was only one of the factors. Remember that the architects who built that ship did not design it to sink,” Ramirez said. (EOB)
