UK Club warning on hold flooding

The UK Club has warned of the risks of cargo hold flooding with Captain David Nichol, senior loss prevention executive at UK P&I Club, discussing a recent case. He said: “A duty deck officer of a container ship noticed a large quantity of water within one of the holds during cargo operations. He immediately informed the master and arrangements were made to transfer the water into a holding tank using the hold bilge pumping system. The depth of water was almost 6 m and approximately 30 containers were fully or partially submerged. When the hold was pumped dry, the affected containers were discharged and jointly inspected at the receivers’ premises where significant damage to the cargo was found due to sea water ingress through the container seals and vents.