A truly rare photograph depicts the three Greek sailors on the semi-submerged ship at the anchorage of Singapore, in the distant year of 1975. It is one of those shipwrecks that happen once every 100 years.
Before we continue, let’s say that the first from the right was Georgios Kachrimanis (Dais).
Georgios Kachrimanis had been enlisted as a sailor and was working as a pumpman on the tanker “KRITI SAN”, with a carrying capacity of 120,000 tons. The ship arrived in Singapore loaded with oil. After unloading its cargo, it went to the anchorage of Singapore where it anchored, awaiting the completion of customs formalities.
Due to bad weather and heavy rainfall, a lightning bolt struck the ship. Because of the flammable atmosphere inside its cargo tanks, an explosion occurred, causing the ship to begin sinking until it rested on the bottom and stopped. It might sound rare for lightning to cause such significant damage to a ship, but it is not something impossible.
As we see in the rare photograph, its bow and stern sections were out of the water. Fortunately, there were no casualties, apart from one crew member injured by the shock wave created by the explosion, who recovered after a short period.
For the record, everything went as hoped; in their misfortune, they had luck on their side.
Georgios Kachrimanis had a taste for “living dangerously”, as in his life he had been shipwrecked twice!! and a third time he escaped by a hair’s breadth:
The first occurred in 1963 with the shipwreck south of Sicily, involving the timber carrier “SIDERIS”, it was characteristic that his family learned of his rescue with a week’s delay; in fact, the announcement was made by Papanthimos during the Sunday service, as communication was not easy back then, and
The second was in 1981, when the tanker “LITL NIKOS”, on which he was serving, caught fire in the Suez Canal, which fortunately was brought under control very quickly.
