THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995 TAG: 9512020572
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
Efforts to save a cargo ship that began taking on water Friday while en route to Norfolk were given up Friday. The 30-man crew was to be evacuated this morning by a combined U.S.-Canadian force.
``With all the water that's already in the ship, they are not going to be able to continue their voyage,'' said Petty Officer Kevin Miller, a Coast Guard spokesman.
The joint rescue effort was scheduled to begin about 1 a.m. today with a helicopter lifting the crewmen from the stricken vessel and taking them to a nearby Canadian frigate.
The decision to abandon the 715-foot Mount Olympus, a Maltese-flagged bulk carrier, came after a daylong effort to save it. The captain radioed for help at dawn Friday, reporting that stormy seas were flooding the ship.
The 600-foot Bulgarian-flag bulk carrier Rodopi, rendezvoused with the Mount Olympus about 1,270 miles east of Virginia Beach. The U.S. Coast Guard sent three C-130 aircraft from its Elizabeth City air station. Each dropped two high-capacity pumps to the beleaguered merchant ship.
The crew of the Olympus ``initially reported that they had seven holds flooded,'' Miller said. But, with the pumps, by late afternoon, they were ``down to three and beginning to stabilize.''
High waves continued to pummel the ship, however, and word came at 10 p.m. that the crew would abandon ship.
A Sea King helicopter from the Canadian patrol frigate Calgary was to handle the evacuation with a Canadian C-130 illuminating the area from above.
Video taken by the crew of one of the U.S. Coast Guard C-130s gave some hint of, but no explanation for, what happened to the ship.
``The cargo hatches were caved in,'' Miller said. ``We don't know if that was from waves coming over the vessel or what. It is very stormy out there.''
KEYWORDS: RESCUE AT SEA U.S. COAST GUARD by CNB