MS München
Encyclopedia
MS München was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 LASH
Lighter Aboard Ship
The lighter aboard ship system refers to the practice of loading barges aboard a larger vessel for transport. It was developed in response to a need to transport lighters, a type of unpowered barge, between inland waterways separated by open seas...

 carrier of the Hapag-Lloyd
Hapag-Lloyd
Hapag-Lloyd is a German transportation company comprising a cargo container shipping line, Hapag-Lloyd AG, which in turn owns other subsidiaries such as Hapag-Lloyd Ships and a cruise line, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises which is now integrated into TUI AG, Hanover...

 line that sank with all hands for unknown reasons in a severe storm in December 1978.

The most accepted theory is that one or more rogue waves hit the München and damaged her, so that she drifted for 33 hours with a list of 50 degrees without electricity or propulsion.

Early career

MS München was launched on May 12, 1972 at the shipyards of Cockerill, Hoboken, Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 and delivered on September 22, 1972. The München was a LASH
Lighter Aboard Ship
The lighter aboard ship system refers to the practice of loading barges aboard a larger vessel for transport. It was developed in response to a need to transport lighters, a type of unpowered barge, between inland waterways separated by open seas...

 ship and was the only ship of her kind under the German flag. She departed on her maiden voyage to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on October 19, 1972.

Her sister ship MS Bilderdijk was built for the Holland America Line at the Boelwerf Temse
Temse
Temse is a municipality located in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, and in the Flemish province of East Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns of Elversele, Steendorp, Temse proper and Tielrode. On January 1, 2006 Temse had a total population of 26,287...

 Shipyard
Shipyard
Shipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial...

, also in Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 (Yard number 859). She sailed under the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 flag until 1986 when she was renamed Rhine Forest. This ship was retired from commercial operation on December 15, 2007. She has been scrapped in Bangladesh.

Last voyage and search operations

The München departed the port of Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...

 on December 7, 1978, bound for Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

. This was her usual route, and she carried a cargo of steel products stored in 83 lighters
Lighter (barge)
A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps," with their motive power provided by water currents...

 and a crew of 28. She also carried a replacement nuclear reactor-vessel head for Combustion Engineering, Inc. This was her 62nd voyage, and took her across the North Atlantic, where a fierce storm had been raging since November. The München had been designed to cope with such conditions, and carried on with her voyage. The exceptional flotation capabilities of the LASH carriers meant that she was widely regarded as being practically unsinkable.

The München was presumed to be proceeding smoothly, until the night of December 12/13. Between 00:05 and 00:07 (all times GMT) München's radio officer Jörg Ernst was overheard during a short radio communication on a "chat" frequency. He reported bad weather and some damage to the München to his colleague Heinz Löhmann aboard MS Caribe, a German cruise ship
Cruise ship
A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way...

 2400 nautical miles (4,444.8 km) away. Ernst also transmitted München's last known position as 44°N 24°W. The quality of the transmission was bad, so that not everything was understood by Löhmann. Since it was a standard communication, the information was not relayed back to the ship's owner until December 17.

Distress call

Around three hours later (03:10-03:20), SOS
SOS
SOS is the commonly used description for the international Morse code distress signal...

 calls were received by the Greek Panamax freighter Marion, which relayed it to the Soviet freighter Marya Yermolova and the German tug boat Titan. MS München gave her position as 46°15′N 27°30′W, which was probably around 100 nautical miles (185.2 km) off her real position. The messages were transmitted via morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...

 and only parts of them were received. One fragment received was 50 degrees starboard, which could be interpreted as a 50-degree list to starboard.
Automatic emergency signals were also received by multiple radio stations starting at 04:43. No further calls were recorded after 07:34, probably because US stations stopped listening on the frequency 2182 kHz. At 17:30 international search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...

 operations were initiated, initially controlled by HM Coastguard
Her Majesty's Coastguard
Her Majesty's Coastguard is the service of the government of the United Kingdom concerned with co-ordinating air-sea rescue.HM Coastguard is a section of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency responsible for the initiation and co-ordination of all civilian maritime Search and Rescue within the UK...

 at Land's End, Cornwall
Land's End
Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....

. Wind speeds of 11-12 Beaufort
Beaufort scale
The Beaufort Scale is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the Beaufort Wind Force Scale.-History:...

 were reported in the area of the search, hampering efforts.

Initial search efforts and further communications

The next day, December 13, three aircraft and six ships searched for the München. At 09:06 Michael F. Sinnot, a Belgian radio amateur
Amateur radio operator
An amateur radio operator is an individual who typically uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other similar individuals on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators have been granted an amateur radio...

 in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, received a voice transmission on the unusual frequency 8238.4 kHz, which is usually used by the German ground station Norddeich Radio. The transmission was clear but interrupted by some noise, and contained fragments of München's name and callsign. Later in court, Sinnot reported that the voice was calm and spoke in English but with a distinct German accent. Since Sinnot only had a receiver for this frequency, he relayed the message via telex
Telex
Telex may refer to:* Telex , , a communications network** Teleprinter, the device used on the above network* Telex , a Belgian pop group...

 to a radio station in Ostend
Ostend
Ostend  is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke , Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast....

.

Between 17:00 and 19:14, ten weak Mayday
Mayday (distress signal)
Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come help me"....

 calls were received by the US Naval Station Rota, Spain
Naval Station Rota, Spain
Naval Station Rota is a Spanish naval base commanded by a Spanish Vice Admiral and fully funded by the United States of America. Located in Rota, Spain, and near the Spanish town of El Puerto de Santa María, NavSta Rota is the largest American military community in Spain and houses US Navy...

 at regular intervals, mentioning "28 persons on board". The messages may have been recorded and sent automatically. München's call sign (DEAT) was sent in morse code was received three times on the same frequency. The Dutch ocean-going tugboat Smit Rotterdam, which was returning from other Mayday calls in the Gulf of Breton and the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

, received the calls as well and went to the designated position under the command of Captain PF de Nijs. Seas were heavy, with a swell averaging 22 metres. The search and rescue operation was coordinated from the Smit Rotterdam with more than 100 ships and 16 aircraft.

The search intensifies

On December 14 wind speeds dropped to 9. By now four aircraft and 17 ships were participating in the search operation. Signals of München's emergency buoy were received. At 19:00 the British freighter King George picked up an empty life raft at 44°22′N 24°00′W. The same day, Hapag-Lloyd's freighter Erlangen found and identified three of München's lighters. The following day, December 15, a British Hawker-Siddeley Nimrod patrol aircraft discovered two orange objects shaped like buoys at 44°48′N 24°12′W and the salvage tug Titan recovered a second life raft. A third one was located at 44°48′N 22°49′W the next day by MS Badenstein, all were empty. A yellow barrel was also sighted that day.

On December 17, at 13:00 Düsseldorf Express salvaged München's emergency buoy. By now wind speeds dropped to 3. The freighter Starlight found two life belts, at 43°25′N 22°34′W the Sealand Consumer picked up a fourth empty life raft. Also three life vests were sighted, two of them by Starlight and another one by Evelyn.

The search is called off

The international search operation officially ended in the evening of December 20, a week after it had begun. The West German government and Hapag-Lloyd decided to search for two more days, British and American forces supported them. The search effort had been the largest undertaken to that date. Altogether 13 aircraft from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, the United States of America, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and nearly 80 merchant and naval ships had searched for the München or her crew. On February 16, the car transporter Don Carlos salvaged a lifeboat from the starboard side of München, the last object discovered from her.

Investigation

The subsequent investigation into the disappearance of the München centred around the starboard lifeboat and in particular the forward block
Davit
A davit is a structure, usually made of steel, which is used to lower things over an edge of a long drop off such as lowering a maintenance trapeze down a building or launching a lifeboat over the side of a ship....

 from which it had hung. The pins, which should have hung vertically, had been bent back from forward to aft, indicating the lifeboat hanging below it had been struck by a huge force, that had run from fore to aft of the ship, and had torn the lifeboat from its pins. The lifeboat normally hung 20 metres above the waterline. With the existence of rogue waves considered so statistically unlikely as to be near impossible, the investigation finally concluded that the severe weather had somehow created an 'unusual event' that had led to the sinking of the München.

As the science behind rogue waves was explored and more fully understood, it was accepted that not only did they exist, but that it was possible that they could occur in the deep ocean, such as in the North Atlantic. Investigators later returned to the question of the München and considered the possibility that she had encountered a rogue wave in the storm that night. Whilst ploughing through the storm on the night of December 12, she was suddenly faced with a wall of water, between 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) high, looming out of the dark. The München would have plunged into the trough of the huge wave, and before she could rise out of it, it collapsed onto her, breaking across her bow and superstructure, tearing the starboard lifeboat out of its pins and likely smashing into the bridge, breaking the windows and flooding her. Having lost her bridge and steering, she would probably have lost her engines. Unable to maintain her heading into the storm, she would have been forced broadside into the waves. She seems to have floated for a number of hours, but the storm and inaccurate positioning prevented her from being located. She was then hulled by the force of the waves, perhaps even being capsized or breached by another rogue wave. She would then have succumbed to the flooding and sunk within a short period.

Media coverage

The loss of the Munchen was featured in an edition of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 documentary series Horizon
Horizon
The horizon is the apparent line that separates earth from sky, the line that divides all visible directions into two categories: those that intersect the Earth's surface, and those that do not. At many locations, the true horizon is obscured by trees, buildings, mountains, etc., and the resulting...

 entitled "Freak Wave," which was first shown on November 14, 2002.

In 2003, the Science Channel created a documentary entitled Killer Waves which studied the disappearance of the München and concluded that a rogue wave was the most likely cause of her loss.

Contribution to case law

In 1981, the North Carolina Court of Appeals
North Carolina Court of Appeals
The North Carolina Court of Appeals is the only intermediate appellate court in the state of North Carolina. It is composed of fifteen members who sit in rotating groups of three...

 set a legal precedent that resulted from the loss of the München. In Rheinberg-Kellerei GMBH v. Vineyard Wine Co. 281 S.E.2d 425 (N.C. Ct. App. 1981), the court heard that 620 cases of wine, destined for Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population is 106,476 according to the 2010 Census, making it the eighth most populous city in the state of North Carolina...

, were lost when the ship foundered. Rheinberg-Kellerei GMBH, which had produced and sold the wine, sued its North Carolina wine distributor, Vineyard Wine Co., for the purchase price of the lost shipment.

But the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that the German wine producer could not recover the purchase price. It decided the seller must bear the risk of loss when they fail to give "prompt notice" that the shipment has been dispatched. Without "prompt notice" that the shipment has been sent, the buyer is denied the opportunity to protect their goods, for example by obtaining insurance, against the risk of any loss, damage or theft. This appellate case is used as an example in many U.S. legal textbooks to illustrate the administration of the Uniform Commercial Code
Uniform Commercial Code
The Uniform Commercial Code , first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 states within the United States of America.The goal of harmonizing state law is...

.
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