MV Derbyshire

1980

Typhoon Orchid, OBO carrier, hatch cover failure Location: East China Sea, ~200 nmi south of Okinawa · Coordinates: 25.25°N 133.18°E · Casualties: 44 · Survivors: 0 · Depth: 4,200 m · Cause: typhoon · structural failure — Caught by Typhoon Orchid in the East China Sea on 9 September 1980 while carrying 157,000 tonnes of iron ore from Canada to Kawasaki. Subsequent investigation found her number one hold hatch cover failed under wave impact; progressive flooding overwhelmed her. Sank without a distress call. · Fate: located 1994 · abyssal · Type: OBO carrier · ore/bulk/oil · Tonnage: 91,655 tons · Crew: 44 · Flag: United Kingdom · Launched: 1976 British OBO carrier (ore/bulk/oil), Seven Islands, Quebec to Kawasaki, Japan, with 157,000 tonnes of iron ore. Caught by Typhoon Orchid in the East China Sea on 9 September 1980. Lost without a distress call. The largest British-flagged ship ever lost; the families' 14-year campaign eventually forced a 1994 survey that found her at 4,200 metres and identified a design weakness in number-one hold hatch covers shared across the OBO class. The Vessel The MV Derbyshire was a British Bibby Brothers OBO (oil/bulk/ore) carrier, commissioned at the Swan Hunter Shipbuilders yard at Haverton Hill-on-Tees on 8 June 1976. She was 294 metres long, 91,655 gross tons, and designed for triple-role cargo service: crude oil, bulk grain and ore, and specialized heavy cargo. She was the largest British merchant ship afloat at her commissioning and was classified as a "very large ore carrier" for the specific ore-trade routes between Canada, Australia, and Japan. The OBO carrier concept, developed in the 1970s, was to produce a single ship type that could carry a variety of bulk cargoes in alternation, avoiding the requirement for dedicated tankers, dedicated ore-carriers, and dedicated grain-carriers. Approximately thirty OBO carriers were built during the late 1970s, principally for British, Japanese, and Norwegian owners. The class's fundamental design challenge was structural: the same hull had to accept the stress loads of liquid cargo (tanker-style) and of dense dry cargo (bulk-style) without structural failure. Her commanding officer from November 1979 was Captain Geoffrey Underhill, 49, a career British merchant marine officer. Her crew was 42 officers and ratings plus two wives of crew members travelling with them. The Disaster At approximately 14:20 on 9 September 1980, MV Derbyshire transmitted a routine position report to Bibby Brothers in Liverpool. The position was 25°25′N 133°18′E, in seas of approximately 5 metres and winds of 65 knots. This was her last transmission. No further communication was ever received from the ship. The subsequent search for Derbyshire began on 11 September 1980 when Bibby Brothers reported her missing after two days of radio silence. The search, conducted by Japanese and American naval and coastal authorities over approximately two weeks, produced no wreckage, no debris, no bodies, and no indication of her specific location. She had vanished completely with all 44 people aboard (42 crew plus the two wives). The circumstances of the loss were contested for 14 years. The British Department of Trade and subsequent Department of Transport initially refused to convene a formal inquiry into the loss, on the grounds that no physical evidence existed to support a formal investigation. The families of the 44 dead, organised as the Derbyshire Families Association from 1982 onwards, campaigned for a formal inquiry through the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1994 a dedicated commercial search expedition, funded principally by the British government and by the International Transport Workers' Federation, located Derbyshire's wreck at 4,200 metres depth in the Philippine Sea, approximately 230 kilometres northwest of Okinawa.