The Heroic Crew of the Stena Immaculate: A Tale of Bravery and Professionalism

The crew of the U.S.-flagged tanker Stena Immaculate demonstrated exceptional professionalism when their vessel was struck by the containership Solong off Britain’s east coast on March 10, preventing what could have been a catastrophic incident.

The incident occurred when the Portuguese-registered Solong, traveling at 16.4 knots, maintained a collision course with the anchored tanker. The Stena Immaculate, carrying 220,000 barrels of military jet fuel, had been stationary for at least 15 hours when the impact occurred.

Details of the incident are now being shared by the crew of the Stena Immaculate, who were members Seafarers International Union (SIU).

Third Mate Jeffery Griffin witnessed the collision firsthand: “I immediately knew, it’s not going to miss us. It was going fast. There was a great big loud crunching noise. That was followed by a whole lot of fire,” told SIU.

The crew bravely fought the fire for around 30 minutes. “I won’t say we were close to putting out the fire, but we were doing well,” Griffin recalled. “We had good pressure. I was about to do a muster when we heard the words, forget the muster, abandon ship.”

Chief Mate Sterie described the intensity of the situation: “As the fire started to increase, we were thinking, this is a bigger problem than we first realized. We can’t fight it.”

The evacuation became urgent when “the wind or maybe the position of the ship changed. All the smoke came toward to the house; we could feel it on our faces. There was so much smoke we couldn’t see the ship that hit us. It was scary because the fire was so close.”

Despite the dangerous conditions, the crew maintained their composure. “We moved in the most organized but urgent way,” Griffin said. “Nobody was slamming into each other. We did a quick muster at the lifeboat. The second mate did the fastest head count I’ve ever seen, but he did count everyone.”

Crew member Brown praised the leadership during the crisis: “Everybody did exactly what they were trained to do. The captain (Thomas Leaf) and second mate (Peter Skerys) in particular processed all the information so quickly, and formulated a gameplan. They were making life-and-death decisions, but I remember thinking, we’re going to be okay with these guys. They have a plan, and it appears to be a good one.”

The crew’s quick thinking and training proved crucial. Before abandoning ship, they activated fire monitors to provide boundary cooling water to adjacent cargo tanks, significantly limiting the damage. Of the vessel’s total cargo of 220,000 barrels of Jet A-1 fuel, only 17,515 barrels were lost.

Stena Bulk CEO Erik Hånell praised the crew’s actions: “We are immensely proud of our crew members who demonstrated exceptional professionalism… This decisive action significantly limited the damage.”

The incident had tragic consequences for the Solong crew, with one member presumed deceased. The vessel’s captain, Vladimir Motin, has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter.

A comprehensive investigation is currently underway by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), working alongside U.S. and Portuguese authorities.