EFFORTPOST The Sinking of the Oceanos of off the cost of RSA in 1991 - Gayreek captain abandons ship without alerting passengers it's sinking.

Greetings Dramatards

The Oceanos was a ship which sank off of the coast of South Africa in 4 August 1991, during a night of highly extreme weather. And although the majority of the passengers and crew involved with incident were not South Africans themselves, the story would dominate the SA press in a similar fashion as that of the Titan Sub which imploded last year in 2023, or the sinking of the Costa Concordia from Italy, because of the manner in HOW it came to sink. Because it's a REALLY dramatic story, filled with valor and cowardice both.

FORBODING RENAMING BAD LUCK HISTORY OF THE OCEANOS:

The Oceanos was originally a French built cruise ship, all the way back in 1952. It was part of a series of cruise ships built for navigating the important circlet between France, Madagascar and Mauritius - both being Frog colonies at the time.

As the French company "Messageries Maritimes" running these cruise ships would go bankrupt in 1977, the Oceanos was sold off and bought repeatedly time and again through various owners. Worse yet still, the Oceanos would be renamed a multitude of times, a rechristening happening with each reselling.

The Original name of this French built vessel back in 1952 when it was constructed, was "Jean Laborde". Some of its other names through the 4 decades of its service would be: Mykinai, Ancona, Eastern Princess. With its final and fateful owners naming her the Oceanos - her latest owners were the Greek company Epirotiki We'll come back to these bozos

The Oceanos newly acquired by the Greek cruise Company, would be put to work offering luxury cruises for passengers and tourists around the world. In conjunction with TFC Tours a holiday organizing company, the Oceanos would offer luxury cruise rides between Europe and especially places like Southern and South Africa.

Although 4 decades old, the Oceanos was well suited as a luxury cruise liner, as it possessed a top deck swimming pool, dining room, dozens of large apartments and suites.

THE LUXURY CRUISE BEGINS: 31 July 1991

On the 31st July 1991, the Oceanos began its circuit, and left Cape Town to begin its cruise along the Eastern warm water Coast of South Africa, to Durban and back. Along the way it would stop at South Africa's largest ports, including Port Elizabeth and East London.

On the night of the Oceanos' departure from East London, there it would encounter the worst storm it had ever experienced since its employ by the Greek Company.

A bomb threat had been called in anonymously, likely by ANC cell belligerents on the planned night of the Oceanos' departure from East London, as this was the phase of intense pressure against the NP regime at the time, and South African Apartheid would reach bursting point on local and international stage, until de Klerk gave into the demands of Democratization from international, and ANC bombing cell's pressures.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/08/05/557-saved-as-liner-sinks-off-s-africa/b1e10579-6457-4763-b072-ea77adb7de68

Anyways, why this is relevant to our story, is that basically the Oceanos was delayed by 24 hours to be searched for any threats, and to make up for lost time, the ship was steered into the growing storm with recklessness.

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Sinking-of-the-Oceanos-Cruise-Ship

"En route to Durban, the Oceanos cruise ship set out from the port of East London on Saturday, August 3, 1991, into 40-knot winds and nine-meter swells."

As that evening's dinner was being served, passengers could instinctively realize that something was very wrong. "Dinner in the ship's Byzantine Dining Room the night of the storm was fraught with nervous laughter. As the ship lurched through massive swells, passengers struggled to keep the food from sliding off their tables."

Waiters and staff would constantly fall over, and drops full trays of food. Moss and Tracy Hills, a husband and wife musician performers on the cruise dinner stage at that time, was alarmed by these events, as they had performed in previous cruises on the Oceanos, and during stormy weather. But it had never ever been this chaotic and unstable before.

Moss and Tracy Hills will basically be the 2 biggest heroes of the story.

https://www.oceanossinking.com/tracy-hills

https://www.oceanossinking.com/moss-hills

OCEANOS SINKS:

At approximately 9:30 PM that night, a loud reverberating boom could be heard throughout the ship, by the passengers in the dining room, even above the extremely loud noise of the storm and swells. The electricity went off, the lights went out and the ship was plunged into oily darkness

Moss and Tracy Hills would attempt to keep the other passengers calm in their fright and stress by continuing to play music for them. By an hour of later, the nervousness of the crowd grew, as the ship began listing, in addition to the rolls in teh heavy 9meter waves. Something was extremely wrong.

Moss Hill would be joined by the Magician and fellow performer Julian Butler, to go and look for Senior crew, as believe it or not, up until this moment, approximately 10:30 PM, well an hour after the power went off the fricking Greek crew had NOT in any way communicated to the passengers what was going on, tried to calm them, or informed them of the status of the ship. The passengers were metaphorically in the dark about their situation, in addition to literally.

https://www.oceanossinking.com/julian-butler

Moss and Butler upon searching for the Senior crew and captain for explanation, found to their horror that below decks, there was already significant flooding, including at the engine room, which is why the power short circuited. Even more horrifyingly, they quickly discovered that all the senior crew were in the process of packing bags and needs, and donning Life-Jackets, all apparently without any fricking intention at all to inform the oblivious passengers, that the senior crew were in the process of fricking abandoning ship!!!

And although there was no official anouncement by any crew or leadership, it was horrifically obvious the darn ship was going down, albeit slowly through flooding!

The Hills and Butler would discover finally, to their shock, the captain and all the senior crew members of the Oceanos piling into an escape/evacuation boat, just like that.

HEROES:

https://www.oceanossinking.com/robin-boltman

At this moment of horror, the two Hills, Butler, and a 4th entertainer Robin Boltman would basically take the initiative and leadership roles, and evacuate the rest of the panic-stricken passengers all by themselves.

https://www.oceanossinking.com/stories-a

The 2 South Africans, an two Englishmen would rise to this occasion, and basically save the lives of everyone in that Dining Room that night, all in the absence of the ship's own crew.

Moss and Butler would go full Gigachad mode and fricking lower the remaining lifebboats not taken, all by themselves - a very precarious and difficult task, as neither men were sailors, or had any prior experience with working the lifeboats or associated equipment.

Moss would try to stabilize the life boats that swung precariously in the wind, waves and rolling of the ship, by standing with one foot on the railing, and the other on the boat, so that fellow passengers, many of whom were old and incapable of being dexterous, to climb into the dangerously swinging lifeboats! All the while wearing no harness or cable or rope or anything, thus placing himself in danger of falling to his drowning death. He showed extreme valor at that time.

Eventually they ran out of lifeboats. But there were still half of all the passengers onboard of the tilting, listing and sinking ship.

MOSS RADIOS FOR HELP:

After valiantly and selflessly helping their fellow passengers upon the lifeboats, whom they could, our heroes headed towards the bridge to find the captain, but he was not there, or any other Senior staff, as the fricking bridge had been completely abandoned! "One of the entertainers, Moss Hills, went to the bridge for instructions and found it empty; the captain had left the remaining 170 or so passengers and crew to fend for themselves."

As our group of heroes struggled to get the Radio working in their unfamiliarity of the device, it was Moss Hill who eventually managed to obtain a reply from a nearby ship. The conversation would become legendary.

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Sinking-of-the-Oceanos-Cruise-Ship

The frustrated speaker would ask Moss for precise coordinates so that they could send aid and rescue, but as not being a Sailor, Moss didn't know where they were, or how to obtain their location. When the unknown sailor at the other end of the radio, being frustrated by this incompetence of his caller, asked for Moss what his rank was, Moss replied that he held no rank, he was merely an entertainer/guitarist!

"What are you doing on the bridge?!" the unknown called asked.

"Well there's no one else here." Moss replied.

"Who is on the bridge with you??"

Our hero Moss replied: "Just my wife, and two magicians."

Eventually the speaker could instruct Moss how to use the bridge equipment, and obtain their location in coordinates, so that the other vessel could pinpoint their location, and bring additional SA coastguard help. Rescue helicopters would be organized by the SA coastal authorities.

At this time the SA coast guard was still mostly controlled by whites, and actually were competent and well equipped to partake in rescue operations.

https://www.sa-transport.co.za/aircraft/articles/puma/puma_sa_330.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_SA_330_Puma

Two small ships in the vicinity were first on the scene, and provided the ship's coordinates to the South African authorities. Rescue helicopters (Pumas) began arriving three hours later, and winched passengers and remaining crew to safety, with Hills continuing in charge of the evacuation.

As many as 13 Pumas played crucial roles in the rescue efforts, winching 225 survivors to safety during bad weather conditions. They were assisted by the lifeboats of the Dutch cargo ship Nedlloyd Mauritius, which had responded to the distress call.

THE GAYREEK CAPTAIN STILL ONBOARD?!

As Moss went all over the ship to ensure nobody was being left behind, he fricking found the captain Avranas still on board, smoking a cigarette next to one of the defunct lifeboats. Apparently the cruise entertainment director Loraine Betts had stopped the cowardly captain just before he hauled butt out of there, pleading for him to stay and help the passengers a few hours before, and nobody had noticed the useless loser just standing there smoking like a frickwit. He huddled like a b-word with a small group of remaining cowardly officers just milling about there

https://www.oceanossinking.com/lorraine-betts

The captain Avranas was thoroughly useless, and didn't help the rescue efforts of Moss and Butler, and only fricking intervened when the SADF rescue helicopters arrived to tow the passengers to safety, where the yellow bellied bastard demanded to be one of the 1st taken off to safety

"So that he could better coordinate rescue efforts from above"

AIRLIFT OPERATION:

This still left about 170 passengers remaining on deck. The rescue operation was extremely arduous and slow, and only 2 passengers could be winched at a time by the Puma rescue helicopters, as there were finite hovering space above the sinking ship. Moss and Tracy Hills would organize the passengers into whom were the most vulnerable, so that they could be airlifted 1st.

To understand just how long this multi hour rescue ordeal was, Tracy and Moss Hills would continue to perform along with Butler and Boltman would try to entertain the people as the ship continued its list and sinking over 12 hours, while on the Oceannos' top deck the SADF rescue helicopters would take long times to harness each and every passenger securely before liftoff.

By the time it was daylight, the ship was listing so precariously, that it was near a 45 degree angle, and many passengers would panic or lose their grip upon the railings and fall within the ocean, yet miraculously each and everyone who fell in the water, was repeatedly rescued by Julian Butler, the magiacian who had remained behind and the Navy Diver Paul Whiley, whom did the lionshare of harnessing passengers upon the deck of the Oceanos as it was listing.

Our group of heroic entertainers were the very last to be rescued and airlifted, and most astonishingly all done just a mere 45 minutes, before the final sinking of the Oceanos which occurred very very swiftly in the final stages of its downfall.

AFTERMATH:

https://web.archive.org/web/20091108202012/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/08/news/08iht-ship.html

Most miraculously and astonishingly, it was found after the hectic rescue that every single one of the 581 people on board had been saved - there had been ZERO fatalities!!!

SA and global media covered the event for months, similar as to the fiasco of the more recent sinking of the Costa Concordia, the greek captain Avranas received extensive media condemnation as an example of unprofessional behaviour whilst in command, as well as his tremendous cowardice in the face of the heroism of the Hills.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16611371

In 1991-1992 Captain Yiannis Avranas and four of the crew of the Oceanos were found guilty of negligence after the ship sank in 1991, by a Greek board of inquiry, for abandoning ship without broadcasting a mayday, alerting the passengers or properly assisting in their evacuation. Despite the judgement, their behaviour was defended by the then head of Epirotiki Line and Captain Avranas continued to command a vessel until his retirement.

YET still they didn't face any legal repercussions or actual punishment and would retire a fricking captain of smaller greek vessels

CAUSE OF FLOODING:

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Sinking-of-the-Oceanos-Cruise-Ship

Oh yeah remember the beginning of the flood? It was the result of incomplete maintenance - a faulty waste-disposal system in the engine room was still being repaired as the ship left port, and was unfinished! This left a 10cm hole in the supposed watertight bulkhead open. Upon leaving port, a pipe and valve was exposed in the bulkhead.

Astonishingly this was not even the 1st time that this specific negligence had been encountered by Port authorities, and this very specific pipe/valve thing had remained exposed upon numerous voyages of the cruiser leaving port with incomplete maintenance!

Under normal circumstances this opening would be well above the sea-line, but on that fateful night of 4 August 1991, the Oceanos would sail directly into the most extreme swells of its career, and the 9meter tall waves would be high enough to pierce this exposure, and flood the ship enough initially, to snowball its end.

GAYREEK COMPANIY EPIROTIKI HAS HISTORY OF MARITIME MISMANAGEMENT:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090813055937/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/07/world/owner-of-lost-greek-cruise-ship-has-history-of-maritime-mishaps.html?scp=2&sq=Oceanos+ship&st=cse

It will surprise no one that our Gayreek friends of the cruiser company Epirotiki was just as badly run as their home country of origin. Apparently, the night of 4 August 1991 wasn't the 1st time the lower decks had even been flooded before, and many previous passengers of Oceanos stating: "Several former passengers have come forward to assert that the lower deck of the Oceanos flooded on a previous voyage here, from July 24 to 28, but the ship's owner, Epirotiki Lines, has insisted the ship was seaworthy."

Additionally 3 fricking ships of the same company had sunk over the course of just 3 years lmoa! Man Greece really peaked 3000 years ago lol!

"At a news conference held here today by TFC Tours, the company's cruise director defended the ship's captain and crew, who were accused by passengers of quitting the ship prematurely. The cruise director, Lorraine Betts, acknowledged that some crewmen left the ship without the captain's permission. But she said at least 60 others had stayed to help the passengers into the life rafts." "Hey at least 60 staff stayed on the ship to help u guyzz!"

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Sinking-of-the-Oceanos-Cruise-Ship

Anyways that's all I got, here is pic of the Hills