Top 20 Most Viewed Stories of 2013 [LIST]

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The capsized cruise liner Costa Concordia lies on its side next to Giglio Island September 16, 2013 as the parbuckling operation gets underway. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
The capsized cruise liner Costa Concordia lies on its side next to Giglio Island, September 16, 2013, just as the parbuckling operation gets underway. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
2013 was a wild year, with a lot of anticipated highs and some unexpected lows in the maritime world. Here at gCaptain we once again saw our biggest year ever, logging over 9.8 million visits and 25 million pageviews as of December 17. So now as the year comes to a close, here is a look back at the top 20 stories that got you clicking:

Top 20 Most Viewed Stories of 2013:

  • On May 26, 2013, the Jascon 4 tugboat sank in 30 meters of water after capsizing off the coast of Nigeria, taking all 12 of its crew with it. Miraculously, more than two days after its sinking, a dive team searching for bodies of the missing came across a lone survivor, the ship’s cook, who was trapped inside a tiny air bubble of the ship and survived by drinking Coca-Cola’s.
  • Messing with your buddy who is passed out after a night of drinking is ALWAYS funny.
  • On August 12, 2012, the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter collided with a Mitsui OSK Lines’ supertanker, M/T Otowasan, near the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, causing extensive damage to the navy ship. In May 2013, a bridge audio recording was released on Youtube of the conversation between the Porter’s Commander and the OOD leading up to and during the collision. It really is the most intense bridge conversation ever…
  • This is what happens when you get so close that you run out of steering options.
  • One word… drones.
  • In October, the U.S. Navy’s newest class of stealth destroyer was floated out of drydock in Bath, Maine. To say people were into it is an understatement.
  • If the MV Susitna is NOT the world’s most ridiculous ship, it’s pretty darn close…
  • The first of Maersk Line’s Triple-E class of 18,000 TEU containerships was delivered from DSME this summer and, in May, gCaptain’s own John Konrad was in South Korea for a tour. This is his report.
  • The maritime world was shocked when the 2008-built MOL Comfort, loaded with over 7,000 containers, literally broke in half in the Indian Ocean. The video in this post gave a prime example of the stresses that these massive containerships are subject to in heavy seas.
  • At 400 meters and with a capacity to carry a whopping 18,000 TEUs, Maersk Line’s Triple-E’s took center stage in 2013 when it comes to massive engineering and economies of scale.
  • Just another day in the Greek islands, apparently.
  • Not the first incident of its kind by any means, but the October kidnapping of the American Captain and Chief Engineer of a Edison Chouest Offshore platform supply vessel off the coast of Nigeria drew national attention. It also happened to coincide with the release of the Captain Phillip’s movie.
  • There is no denying that the DDG 1000, the first-in-class of the U.S. Navy’s Zumwalt-class of stealth of destroyers, really is badass.
  • The Costa Concordia salvage, officially the largest and most complex maritime salvage in history, took center stage in 2013. This is just the first on our list.
  • This video was oddly fascinating. Watch at your own risk.
  • The 19-hour parbuckling (or uprighting) of the Costa Concordia shipwreck in Isola del Giglio was streamed live by nearly every major media outlet. I was just one of the millions of people that were glued to their computers that day.
  • On June 17, 2013, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines’ 2008-built MOL Comfort began suffering from severe hogging and broke in two while underway from Singapore to Jeddah in the Indian Ocean. The crew escaped in life rafts and were picked up by another merchant vessel. The stern section went adrift and sank 10 days later. The bow section was towed most of the way towards the Arabian Gulf, but eventually burst into flames and sank on July 10.
  • Mark my words, the images from the prolonged MOL Comfort event in the Indian Ocean will go down as some of the most fascinating photos of a maritime disaster in history. And, after both sections of the vessel sank, the photos are really the only evidence investigators have to determine just what went wrong. A final report into the incident by classification society ClassNK has still not been released.
  • Initial reports said that the MOL Comfort broke in half and sank in the Indian Ocean. It wasn’t until we saw photos of both fore and aft sections floating separately that we understood the scale of the disaster. We basically live blogged the entire 3 week ordeal.
  • Hands down, the successful parbuckling of the Costa Concordia was the biggest story of 2013. A day after the ship was uprighted by a salvage team from Florida-based Titan Salvage, we released this series of photographs chronicling the events from that day. It went viral.

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