Sharjah: A week after the loss of oil tanker Lady Moon, another commercial vessel has sunk off the UAE shoreline amid gale-force winds and waves reported as high as six metres, Gulf News has learned.
Amid a cold snap hugging the country, 45-metre long supply vessel Hamed II is reported to have gone down about 30 metres off the breakwater at Al Hamriya Port sometime early Sunday morning.
The captain is unaccounted for while five of his crew members escaped injury and are in custody.
The ship's holds were reportedly empty when she went down.
Accounts collected by Gulf News on Monday from sources in the maritime industry said that the Hamed II attempted to ride out rough sea conditions overnight and dropped anchor several hundred metres from port.
The anchor rod may have snapped and the ship drifted near shore where high winds and waves are believed to have swamped the vessel.
The ship is resting in 12 metres of water near the sunken oil tanker Lady Moon which was claimed by the heavy seas last week.
A weather duty forecaster said yesterday that gale-force winds of between 34-40 knots were forecast several days ago and that waves reached "15-18 feet" (4.6-5.5m) high the night the Hamed II sank.
Yesterday, the Dubai MET office issued another weather advisory of maximum winds of 22-27 knots and waves reaching more than four metres high overnight.
The forecaster said the "shamal will weaken on Wednesday" and the weather could stabilise later in the week.
