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M/S Sleipner, the Flaggruten boat between Stavanger-Haugesund-Bergen enters Vågen in Bergen. Foto: Harald Sætre.

M/S Sleipner was a catamaran built in 1999 and was the sister ship of M/S Draupner in the HSD Sjø company. Sleipner had a frame built in aluminum, and was built at the Austal Ships Pty Ltd yard in Australia. She was 42 m long, 12.5 m wide and was certified for 358 passengers.

On November 26, 1999, only three months after being commissioned, during bad weather Sleipner collided with a rock in the notorious part of the North Sea called "Sletta", just north of the town of Haugesund. The ship sank and 16 of the people on board died.

Disaster

On Friday, November 26 1999 Sleipner left Haugesund at 18.50 on course for Bergen. Across the open sea at Sletta, the boat experienced strong winds from the south west. At 19.08 the boat crashed into the rock called Store Bloksen. Immediately after the crash, Sleipner notified the authorities of the accident via Rogaland Radio (RR) which was relayed to the Hovedredningssentralen for the South of Norway, stating that Sleipner had hit the rocks near the Ryvarden lighthouse.

Recognizing the possible consequences of the accident, the emergency central declared a Mayday situation, something the Sleipner crew had not done. All ships within a 30-45 minute radius of the accident were asked to assist in the rescue operation, and shortly after Sleipner sank approximately 10-12 boats were providing assistance.

Of the 85 people on board, 69 were saved. Afterwards the bodies of the remaining 16 people were recovered and identified. This made it the most severe accident with passenger ferries in the recent history of Norway.

Investigation and aftermath

The investigation following the disaster revealed that the accident and its magnitude was caused by a number of factors:

• The initial cause of the accident was a navigational error as the boat was approximately 400 meter off course. The boat had started service only a few months before, and the crew was not yet fully acquainted with its equipment, most notably its radar system. It was established that the crew had focused too much on the radar and not on visual inspection.
• At the time of the accident, the waves were higher than the boat was certified for.
• Austral Ships Pty Ltd yard in Australia had deviated from the original blue prints. Instead of installing one communication device in each of the two hulls, both the main and back-up system were installed on one side. As it was this side that hit the rock, most of the electric circuit went off-line shortly after the accident.
• Only one of the life rafts was deployed, and this one floated away before passengers could board the raft. Again inexperience of the crew with the new boat was the cause of this, having only practized emergency procedures during fair weather.
• The life vests as approved by the Norwegian authorities turned out to be flawed. The life vests were donned by putting the head through an opening and then tightening the sides. However, upon entering the water, the life vests slipped off over the passengers' head. As a consequence of the investigation, all life vests on Norwegian passenger ferries were changed to a model that includes an extra strap that needs to be passed between the passengers' legs.

Technical information

• Year of construction: 1999
• Call signal: LJYH
• Build by: Austal Ships Pty. Ltd., Fremantle, Western Australia (# 83)
• Gross Register Tonnage: 735
• Net Register Tonnage: 231
• Dead weight: N/A
• Length: 41.75 meter
• Speed: N/A knots
• Passenger capacity: 358
• Motor: 2x 16cyl. 4T DM (MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH, Friedrichshafen), 6,254 brutto hp

History

• 1999: Aug.: Commissioned as «Sleipner» for the HSD company in Bergen, Norway.
• 1999: November 26: Collided with the rock called "Store Bloksen" at Sletta, while on its way from Stavanger to Bergen; 16 of the people on board died.

External links

• The official report about the investigation of the disaster.