80ft? I wear a harness on anything over 12 feet....

i merged the two threads to keep the stories together

got this off the rsx site...pretty funny...

MULLIGAN!!

(check out zoom44's thread about how MNAO decided to just ignore all 8 owners from now on)

awful to hear about the death though.

:yelrotflm :werd:

Death is sad though.

http://www.alaskareport.com/coastguard10125.htm

they are towing it now.. check out the picture of the guys on it..


http://www.alaskareport.com/images/rescue33.jpg

there's also a video of the rescue here http://www.alaskareport.com/shiprescue.wmv

from a co-worker

we need that punk girl to kick it to the other side so it'll right itself !

How many Mazda sales guys will be offering a deal on inventory with "capsized damage"?

It'll put the "hail damage" stuff to shame.....

look at expos post in the beginning.. the cars are going too look like that.

https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...chmentid=81969

My brother is a crewman aboard one of the tugs that dragged and moored it to a bouy. Here's an excerpt from his email. He has quite a few pics that he will be uploading to his flickr account, I'll post the link when he does. They might be boarding it when they start the operations to right it. I'll see if he can get any inside pics of the damage to the cars.

---

You may or may not have heard about it, but a Jap car carrier called the Cougar Ace rolled over south of the Aleutians about a week ago. If you didn't see it on the news, google it. We were called out for the salvage job, but we had other ship assists to do. A Crowley tug finally towed it in to Dutch today. Us and 4 other tugs, coast guard, helped it moor to a buoy today. I'll get some pictures uploaded to Flickr later. It was pretty amazing. It had a 75% list, the keel and prop was sticking out of the water. One member of the salvage team died from a fall a few days ago. We are going to try to right it over the next few days.

Other than that excitement, it's been real slow up here. Most of the boats can't find any fish, so I'm making less overtime $ than usual. We're just going to the gym a lot and fishing for halibut every day.

If nothing else, at least the xenon headlights (of any 8's) will level.

haha, hate to laugh but that was pretty funny

small update, no word on photos from him yet. Though he promised to take a peek inside if possible.


They say all the cars are lashed down, and since it didn't go all the way over, most should be dry. They should give all the salvage crews some cars for hazard pay.

Ok so I'm two weeks late on reading this....but that comment was freaking hilarious!
Also...I've had my SILVER 8 for about three months now and still don't know what all the fuss is about with the "curse of the silver" comments.

^^^ Ohhh there ya go... now you just jinx'd yourself and guaranted to be another statistic. You might as well just run the car into a ditch yourself and get it all done and over with. =p

Here's a pic from the city of Unalaska's website:
http://www.unalaska-ak.us/vertical/S...A1D961657}.JPG
Are either of those tugs your brother's boat, Labop?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1153651...7594232585176/

Not sure which one. He is usually on the Gyrfalcon, which I think is still in drydock. I need to ask the name of the ship he is currently on. I know they just took another tug up there to stand in for the Gyrfalcon, I'll get more info from him.

wow, that's really amazing.

Incredible pictures. I hope they can save most of the cars.

Another update from my brother, apparently he is on one of those ships.

I am on the Millennium Star. It is the tug that says Tractor Tug on the side. The Gyrfalcon is working down in Seattle and getting fitted with a bow winch for ship assist work. She will be back up in a few months. Hopefully I'm off so I can make the trip.

The cougar ace is still anchored up with an 80% list. The are divers on it right now trying to dry out the engine and pump rooms. When they are ready to pump ballast and right it, we will stand by alongside, maybe with a line up to help pull.

I have a lot more photos, but I'm maxed out until pro takes effect.

ok, hope they can save those cars that havent been damaged... with the ship tilted like that, i bet all the cars are right up on each other.... all the paint must be screwed up, not to mention the mirrors are also all damaged...

Probably not, the Tricolor sank, which is why those cars are so disgusting. They say the cars were lashed down on the Cougar Ace too, but I doubt whatever they used to lash down the cars can handle an 80% list... Probably just a ton of body damage with a lot of salvageable navigation systems... :)

-P23

I see a Future Carfax commerical outa this, not sure why I just do.

Even if they were dented a bit, it would be ever so cool if the salvage gang could get some cars- great advertising! And there are some nice places to enjoy driving in Alalska (there is at least one really good road (during summer). Sorry to hear fishing is down - we have a lot of fishing boats at Morro sitting idle because of new fishing regs - was sorry to hear other fishermen not having luck!

^^^ i'm not trying to start problems or cause any negative feelings with what i'm about to express, but am i the only one that notices that that has nothing to do with the topic at hand or even the topic within the topic. its more along the lines of random thoughts quickly typed about whatever memory that the current topic causes you to remember. i believe you are a fine person winfree :), but your mind works differently in processing current information.

^ I can see it too.....

"Fresh off the boat"
or
"NEW SHIPMENT"

holy crap! thatz sad!

One heck of an insurance payout.

here's the latest update.

http://cargolaw.com/2006nightmare_cougar-ace2.html

they have reduced the list to 57 degrees and are pumping more water today if the weather improves.

From the pictures, it looks like the weather was unusually good - no major waves! How rare is that! Alaskan seas are notorius for being ship killers - and it's wave action that would smash around the contents of the container boxes - if the cars are not too beat up this might even end the curse of the silvers! :ylsuper:

Dills - you are correct - you have been posting stuff that has nothing to do with this thread! But since you insist - some engines have pistons, some are rotaries- not all minds process info the same way. How nice of you to notice and share! If you are trying to be a troll you are a success! :bootyshak

I still can't understand how that f8cker didn't go under. Taking on enough water to hit an 80% list, but still kept up? That's impressive.

Wierd - isn't it? Tell's you the weather must have been a miracle! Did'nt they have a cruise ship do something like this?

the crew at least did thier job of sealing all the hatches in the ship that's what kept it afloat. it probably was a problem with a bilge/ballast pump failure that made it list and it got out of control very quickly. once the engine came out of the water there wasn't jack they could do and abandoned ship. so far everythting has gone textbook. it's sad that a salvager died, but impressive that the crew saved the boat, got off of it in high seas and that they were able to tow it to port and keep it afloat.

They had a discovery channel film on Alaskan salvagers - I sure hope this operation gets to be something like that - it has all the ear marks of a great story! Pity about the man down - hate when one of the brave guys gets it! My helicopter unit (129th Air Rescue) did some saves in the Alaskan waters so got some first hand hate for bad weather there and some real respect for Coast Guard and Salvage operations! Keep this post going to the end!

"Sea Worthy Vehicle"
or
"Fresh Ocean Scent"

Oh and a discovery documentry would be nice. Be interesting to see the how's and why's the ship did what it did.

We'll see how that galvanized metal resists seawater corrosion.

heard today that most of the cars are intact, and that most are actually hanging from the straps. some straps failed and the cars went tumbling into the rest. it supposed to be righted very soon, they brought in some special pumping equipment or something.

can't wait to see some pics.. being in the oceanographic busines has it's perks :)

^^^^

This also from cargolaw.com and a spectator...

"Was passing thru Dutch Harbor last week and took the attached picture of M/V Cougar Ace on the evening of Aug 11. Spoke with one of the salvors who said it was very stable and the grapevine had it that it would be rightened soon. We'll see. The cargo of Mazdas is said still to be intact, although hanging from straps that are stretched to the limit. Many jokes in Unalaska these days about beachcombing Mazdas"

^^^
Where did you read/hear about the tie down straps failing and some cars crashing into each other....the above quote does not state this? :)

someone who was aboard or nearby yesterday... i guess it's the talk of the town up there since the fishing hasn't been going so well. i've also heard that dutch harbor isn't doing so well this year because puget is paying MUCH more this year. almost $1 pound more. it's something big up there.

Would the salvage company actually get to own and sell the cars, or would they revert to the insurance company? Would they take the ship into its orginal port and off load it or have a big car sale off the dock? I can just imagine everybody in some little fishing villages doing trucks and snow buggies in the winter and then zipping around in 8s when the weather permits - Can you imagine 1000 8s on the Alaskan Hwy driven by crab fishermen, trappers, prospectors, oil riggers, soldiers, Alutes and a few fancy ladies from Fairbanks? Kids and big dogs looking out the back windows! Epic! :rock:

Good news is the cars are strapped down pretty well. Also, the Mazdas are in the part furthest from the water near the top.

Would they still be under Warrenty? If not would it knock the price down to the point it would be worth a flight to Alaska just to pick one up?

It would be interesting to know if they are in good enough shape to still be consider driveable and sellable. If they are intact that is pretty amazing. Think of the stories you could tell about your new car and it's traumatic trip.

I also haven't heard anything about straps failing but I did hear that a lot of them were hanging and fully intact.

she's up..

http://208.219.69.31/caup.jpg

the whole boat was mazda's, that's all this ship does is move mazda's. also the top was in the water, infact cargo area #9 had taken on water and was partly responsible for the list. the cars would/should have been loaded as low to the bottom as possible to keep this from happening. I'm sure that now she's uprigth we'll get some pictures inside very soon.

http://208.219.69.31/cadeck.jpg

Since some of you seem to know . . .

What is the capacity of this beast?

4,813 automobiles on board. it estimated capacity is north of 5,000 vehicles. it has a record of 5,214 in one delivery.

60% of the cars are Mazda3s & 30% are CX-7 SUVs. the other 10% is unspecified.

so according to your percentages:
2887.8 Mazda 3's
1443.9 CX-7's
481.3 unspecified (unrecognizable?) wrecks
(The decimal point are for the ones that broke apart)
Maybe?

I wonder how it will affect the CX-7 rollover rating when they had 1400+ roll at the same time :) JK
I really hope most of them made it OK it would be a shame to have to put down that many cars.

there were some few RX-8s on there and a few cars non-mazda i am told. all of the Mazda cars will be given to tech education centers around the country(even like high schools i hear) non will be salvaged or sold. dealers should all have a list of their allocated cars that were on the ship