The MV Danio has certainly had some adventures this year. In March she hit both the BBC and the ITV British news channels when she went aground just off the Farne Islands, an environmentally sensitive area just off the coast of Northumberland. Well, “there’s aground, and then there’s hard aground,” as one commentator reported, “In the case of the MV Danio it was definitely a case of the latter.”
Bad weather made attempts to free the ship impossible for a tense ten days. The Farne Islands is home to puffins and seals, and the M/V Danio was carrying 27 tons of diesel fuel and 1,500 tons of wood. Finally, on March 28th, she was pulled off the rocks by the tugboat Lomax.
Hardly surprising then to hear her owners comment, “We all thought that one of the biggest problems would be the renewing of both damaged propellers.” And they had good reason – the photograph below shows one of the twisted and cracked blades – and classification society Germanischer Lloyd expressed doubt as to the feasibility of a repair. Nevertheless, after careful assessment, specialists, Maritime Propeller Repairs (MPR), accepted the challenge.
“We made a full inspection and repair procedure report which we sent to Germanischer Lloyd (GL) for approval because one blade was broken below the 0.7 radius. Then, within four days we’d cast a new blade tip which was given a 3.2 certificate from GL. L,” explained Managing Director, Gert Hendriksen. “Altogether the repair took ten days at the end of which we took radiographic pictures of the welding areas and GL inspected once more and gave final approval.”
The owners of the Danio were amazed and delighted with the work. “After less than two weeks both propellers were back in our hands, repaired, renewed and in perfect condition,” said Frank Dahl, Managing Director of Dahl Shipping, “we would like to thank MPR very much for their perfect and fast repair work to our good old lady”. Germanischer Lloyd were also impressed with the work and approved the repair.
