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Tor Viking, AHTS, 8M32C
The Bering Sea is a monster. When its violent waters seemed ready to claim the M/V Golden Seas as their next victim, the US Coast Guard called on Tor Viking II, an AHTS vessel, to come to the rescue.
It was early December 2010 and the weather was unusually bad, even by Bering Sea standards. Winds were storm force; the waves, twelve meters high. For the bulk carrier Golden Seas, this was a particularly dangerous combination: the ship’s turbocharger had failed, leaving her with limited power and unable to make headway. The Coast Guard was worried. They had already seen the worst-case scenario play out six years earlier, when the ill-fated ship Selendang Ayu drifted into the Unalaska coast and broke in two pieces.
Full Speed Ahead
“If you hurry, you might reach her before she runs aground,” the Coast Guard said as the AHTS vessel set out from Dutch Harbor.
For twenty-four hours, Tor Viking II steamed full-speed ahead toward Golden Seas, pitching and rolling the whole way. The ship tossed so much that one of the life rafts, designed to self-inflate under water, inflated. And a storage reel on the forecastle, protected behind the windlasses, broke. When the rescuers, weary with seasickness, finally reached the distressed ship, the real work of securing the emergency towline began.
Heroes by Night
Watch how the US Coast Guard called on Tor Viking II, an AHTS vessel, to come to the rescue.
