When the Ryou-Un Maru slowly slipped across the North Pacific Ocean and appeared to endanger the Alaskan coastline the other day, the response from the US Coast Guard was to blow up while it still floated in deep, ocean water.

The ship, a deep sea fishing vessel, destined for the scrap yard was close to the centre of the Japanese tsunami that struck the North Eastern coast of Japan about a year ago, causing reverberations and controversy in its wake.

The ship was set adrift, with about five million tonnes of other rubbish and flotsam, and was slowly blown across the sea towards the US and Canadian Western coastline. With nobody aboard, but unknown cargo and 4000 litres of diesel oil still in its tanks, it was a veritable “ghost ship.”

The great natural disasters like tsunamis and cyclones or hurricanes, are some of the maritime industry’s greatest modern day dreads, damaging more ships and smaller craft than any human activity, including war.

Storm Tide © Daniel Täger - Fotolia.com

Fortunately, in many cases, communications and forecasting help to provide sufficient forewarning of some of the worst natural events. The dozens of pearl luggers that were swept ashore in Australia’s 1899 Cyclone Mahina knew nothing of the great storm that bore down on them, ultimately killing 400 or more seamen. Similarly, it was the lack of a proper tsunami warning system that led to the destruction of hundreds of boats, mostly small fishing boats, which were lost in the 2004 “Boxing Day” tsunami that originated deep below the sea off the coast of Sumatra.

Even modern yachts were caught unawares in the latter event, despite their ultra modern radios and on board email systems. In Thailand’s marinas and sculpted bays and islands, even as far as Malaysia, dozens of yachts were trapped by the triple whammy of great waves that engulfed the Andaman coast.

The only warning that some people had was when the water suddenly retreated, as if the tide was going out. Twenty minutes later, the first of the three large tsunami waves reared up as it approached the coast at speeds of up to 400 kilometres an hour.

In some ways, boats and ships have better luck than those on land when a tsunami strikes. As long as there is sufficient warning, these craft can put to sea. Tsunami waves are only dangerous in shallow water. Strange as it seems, even a large tsunami like the 2004 event only causes an almost imperceptible gentle rise and fall for a boat floating in deep water.

The Pacific Ocean has had a good tsunami warning system for quite some time. It is a boon for boats and ships as long as they are far enough from the epicentre of the earthquake that triggers the waves.

No such good luck for those that are too close, as no warning can ever be long enough when within the range of a nearby tsunami. Such was the fate of the Ryou–Un Maru and many other boats like it in last year’s Japanese tsunami.

Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons – they are all the same thing, but are given different names, depending on the area that these tropical storms are experienced. The correct meteorological term is a “tropical revolving storm” and can exert its malevolent influence anywhere within the tropics, normally in the hotter, wetter summer months of the western sides of all the great oceans.

These storms can now be predicted with reasonable accuracy, their origins within oceanic thunderstorm complexes and their evolution into deadly systems tracked with the aid of satellites and a legion of weather instruments.

They are now not much of a hazard for large, ocean going commercial ships, more of a nuisance than a danger, as the forecasting service is able to allow a change of plan or route.

Smaller fishing boats, commercial ferries, trading boats and pleasure boats can take shelter, given adequate forecast, but some cyclones are still so powerful that even the best forecasting system can not avoid total destruction.

Cyclone Yasi, last year’s East Australian category 5 storm, blew home close to the 1899 Mahina and caused death and destruction wherever it struck. In one marina, in one of Australia’s most sheltered areas, in what had been thought to be a “cyclone hole”, a hundred pleasure boats were thrown across the water in the cyclone’s storm surge and smashed against the shore like matchsticks.