The catastrophe that will be discussed in this article is a landmark one. Firstly, this is the last disaster of ships under the red flag.
A week later, the flag of the USSR will be lowered over the Kremlin. And secondly, it was caused by a very rare natural phenomenon – the “killer wave”. Until now, they have been little studied and the reason for their appearance by scientists is not entirely clear. In this article, we will talk about the death of the Kerch BMRT “Kartli” off the coast of Great Britain on December 18, 1991.
In the 1950s, the question arose of a sharp intensification of fishing. At that time, all trawlers used the so-called onboard fishing method. With this method, the trawl was lowered into the water from the side of the trawler. This method was tried and tested, but had an upper limit on the number of fish caught. In a number of countries, the idea of lowering the trawl net from the stern while the vessel is moving has been tested. This allowed a sharp increase in the catch. In the USSR, they bought documentation from Great Britain, although even before the Great Patriotic War in the Pacific Ocean, one trawler was converted to stern fishing. Fishermen on it showed good results. A small series of 24 vessels was built for the purchased technologies – large freezing fishing trawlers BMRT of the Pushkin type. On the basis of this project, a mass series of BMRT of the Mayakovsky type (project 394) was built. A total of 226 BMRTs of this type were built. These are quite large vessels (with a displacement of 3,170 tons), from which fish were caught and frozen. Tropic-type vessels became a further development. The project of this BMRT was developed in the GDR, a total of 86 trawlers of this type were built. The ship’s displacement was 3,275 tons, length 80 meters, speed 11.7 knots – about 21 km/h. The trawler could catch fish, freeze them, make fishmeal and produce fish liver oil.
BMRT “Kartli” (named after one of the main historical and geographical regions of Georgia) was launched on June 29, 1966. Kerch became the home port of the BMRT. BMRT was part of the Kerchrybprom fleet.
The introduction of BMRT-type vessels into operation allowed fishermen to fish in almost any area of the world’s oceans. On December 14, 1991, Kartli left the English port of Lerwick, located on the Shetland Islands, on its last voyage. On board were 400 tons of frozen fish, which had to be delivered to the port of Kerch. The voyage task included calling at the Bulgarian port of Burgas.
There were 51 crew members on board the trawler. For fishermen, such a transition is a kind of rest. There are no exhausting jobs associated with setting or lifting a trawl or processing fish. Another concern. A few days before the release of their Lerwick, information came on the radio about the signing of the Belovezhskaya Accords. People were worried about uncertainty. In addition, the documents were forgotten in the port, and the Kartli had to return to Lerwick, and this is definitely a bad omen.
The storm began on December 17th. He found the BMRT near the Scottish island of Jiga. In principle, potentially the storm did not carry any particular danger, although it reached a value of eight points. It was necessary to keep the course strictly with the bow of the ship to the wave. At midnight, Captain Vladimir Gaiduk was replaced on watch by the second navigator Oleg Borisovich Kalyadin and helmsman Viktor Kolodin.
There were 15 minutes left until the end of their watch. At 03:45 local time, the trawler shuddered from a terrible blow. The crew had the feeling that the Carly had come to an abrupt halt. This was the killer wave.
The reasons for this natural phenomenon have not been studied so far. From time to time, sailors from different countries told that their ships met during a storm with a very large wave, which often caused the death of the ship. Surprisingly, for the first time, scientists documented the “killer wave” only in 1995, four years after the death of Kartli. Then the height of the “killer wave” was 25.6 meters. There is still no unequivocal answer about the reasons for the appearance of such waves. Oceanologists suggest that “killer waves” are the so-called wandering waves, which have enormous kinetic energy. The main difference between “killer waves” and tsunamis is that they occur not only in shallow water, but also in the deep open waters of the oceans. The height of the “killer waves” reaches 20-30 meters. According to sailors, sometimes the height is even higher. Faced with such a wave, the ship will almost certainly be wrecked. The force of water pressure in the “killer waves” reaches 980 kPa or almost 10 atmospheres.
The witness of such a wave was a mechanic who, at the moment of impact, went on deck. He was saved by the fact that he was on the port side, and the wave hit fell on the starboard side. It was not washed away only because the mechanic managed to grab a rack welded to the deck. The trawler was completely under water. Everyone who was in the cabins and rested after the watch flew out of their beds.
When the wave subsided, terrible destruction became visible. The blow fell almost perpendicular to the side of the trawler. The watch was unable to turn the ship bow to the wave. In the superstructure, there was a hole with an area of about 15 square meters, a dent about 30 meters long, and all the bulwarks were torn off. Together with them, the wave tore off all deck equipment – windlass, winches. All the windshields on the bridge were smashed out, all the instruments on the bridge (steering wheel, engine telegraph, racks with radar monitors) were torn from their places and, destroying everything in their path, breaking the bulkheads, ended up in the captain’s cabin. The entire watch on the bridge was lost.
Panic broke out on board. Part of the crew rushed to the boat deck, but as a result, 4 life rafts were swept out to sea, and only one and four people sat in two more, although they were designed for a much larger number of people. Looking ahead, let’s say that they, frozen, but alive, were raised from the water by rescuers. Water in December off the coast of Scotland has a temperature of only 2 degrees Celsius.
Saved the position of mechanics. Immediately after the wave hit, communication with the wheelhouse was lost. After some time, the “Small back” command nevertheless came to the engine room. The rudders of the Kartli were jammed after the impact, and only the operation of the engines saved the ship from flooding for some time – it continued to go stern forward against the wave. By that time, the 3rd navigator organized the crew’s struggle for survivability. The captain was injured during the impact and was in his cabin.
Rescue operation
The fishermen are lucky. The tanker Drupa passed by. Surprisingly, he was contacted using a Walkie Talkie, an individual walkie-talkie used by the crew when mooring, or some other ship’s work. The captain of the tanker gave the order to drift near the Kartli and, using his radio station, called for rescuers.
At 05:20 local time, 6 rescue helicopters of the coastal rescue service and a base anti-submarine aircraft, which acted as the coordinator of the rescue operation, flew to the BMRT from the coastal airfield. The ship of the British Navy “Olma” was sent to the disaster square. The mechanics were able to keep the trawler’s main engine running until six in the morning. Then it had to be stopped, as the engine began to overheat dangerously, and the danger of a fire in the engine room became quite real.
By this time, “Kartli” found helicopters that began to evacuate people. The Drupa tanker stood next to it in such a way as to cover the trawler from the wind and reduce its pitching. One helicopter filmed the fishermen from their life rafts. At 10-30 local time, 47 people and the ship’s cat were rescued. According to English rescuers, this was the largest rescue operation in the second half of the 20th century.
But there were also dead. Starpom Alexander Nesterov was seriously injured during the strike, was rescued by a helicopter and died on the shore in the hospital. The second navigator Oleg Kolyadin, helmsman Viktor Kolodin died on the bridge during the impact of the wave. Waitress Nina Troshina fell overboard while trying to board a life raft.
The trawler “Kartli” was left to drift with a list of 25 degrees. He was thrown into the shallows in one of the bays of Gigha Island. Today you can still see part of the stern in clear weather.
A week later, the Soviet Union collapsed. The tumultuous events that followed meant that today very few people remember this tragedy. Research into the causes of the appearance of “killer waves” continues.
In 2009, the writer I.Ya. Rakitin wrote a book about the tragedy – “The last voyage of the Kartli trawler.