Tourist attraction in Hong Kong
Didn’t the “Jumbo Kingdom” sink after all? Owner denies demise
The “Jumbo Kingdom” in Hong Kong Harbour. With 2300 seats and a height of 28 meters, it is considered the largest restaurant ship in the world.
© UIG / Imago Images
The news of the sinking of the “Jumbo Kingdom”, a Hong Kong tourist attraction and the largest restaurant ship in the world, went around the world. Now the operating company denies that the ship sank.
Did the “Jumbo Kingdom” sink in the South China Sea or just capsize? According to several Hong Kong media reports, the ship’s owner, Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises, denies that the world’s largest restaurant ship sank off the Paracel Islands. As the “South China Morning Press” and the “Hong Kong Free Press” unanimously report, a company spokeswoman insisted that the “Jumbo Kingdom” only capsized on Sunday, but not sank. However, she was unable to answer the questions as to whether the ship had sunk in the meantime and where the accident site was. But it was “incorrect to say that the ship sank”.
The company spokeswoman and a commissioned PR agency also did not answer the question of why there were no photos or videos of the scene of the accident. The ship data of the tugboat “Jaewon 9”, which was supposed to transfer the restaurant ship to Cambodia, also do not provide any information about the possible place of the accident. The last known position of the tugboat on popular tracking portals such as Vessel Finder was June 14 south of Hong Kong – the day the “Jumbo Kingdom” was towed out of the port of Aberdeen. According to the owners, both the tugboat and the restaurant ship remain off the coast of the Paracel Islands. The “Hong Kong Free Press” published a screenshot in which the tugboat was located southeast of the island province of Hainan.
In the “South China Morning Post”, the operator of the tug rejected the allegations of deception arising in Hong Kong. These are completely “ridiculous,” said Yoon Ju-dong, an executive at the operating company, whose name is not given. According to Yoon, some of the buoyancy tanks were damaged, causing water to enter the ship. “The ‘Jumbo Kingdom’ has eight buoyancy tanks and I suspect they were damaged by the waves out at sea,” Yoon said.
“Jumbo Kingdom”: Confusing information in accident report
The first message about the avoidable sinking of the ship on Monday caused confusion. The message states that the ship was exposed to adverse weather conditions before water entered and it capsized – but there was no talk of sinking. According to “The Standard”, another statement written in Chinese said that the “Jumbo Kingdom” had completely filled with water and turned. However, the operators pointed out in both messages that the water at this point was 1000 meters deep and that salvage was “extremely difficult”. When asked by the South China Morning Post, however, the company spokeswoman was unable to answer why this passage was published in the first message if the ship did not sink at all. Media around the world, including the starreported about the sinking of the ship.
Meanwhile, the Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises is threatened with trouble from the Hong Kong Navy Office. This confirmed to the “South China Morning Post” that the owners could have violated applicable regulations because they did not report the accident within 24 hours. Instead, the Navy Office only found out about the disaster in the South China Sea from the press report. According to the owners, the “Jumbo Kingdom” capsized on Sunday, and the Hong Kong media reported on the incident for the first time on Monday evening. The Navy Office requested a report on the accident, which it received Thursday, according to a statement. The message, written in Chinese, also mentions that the “Jumbo Kingdom” is still “on the water off the Paracel Islands”.
In the South China Morning Post, a former Navy Office official criticized the fact that the “Jumbo Kingdom” was even put on the high seas. Due to its structure, the ship is only seaworthy to a limited extent and is not intended to be on the high seas. “It should have been in calm waters to reach its destination unharmed. He doubted the ship could be salvaged as it turned in the water and there was a downward force on the ship from the intrusion of the water. “This causes the ship to sink.”
“Jumbo Kingdom” with a mountain of debt in the millions
The restaurant ship, which opened in 1976 and has room for 2,300 guests, has not been very profitable in recent years. It had been making losses since 2013 and was closed in March 2020 when the corona pandemic began. At the end of May, the operators announced that the ship was to be towed to a shipyard. Where to was initially not publicly known. The Navy Office announced on Tuesday that a shipyard in Cambodia should have been the destination of the ship. In their statement, the owners also blamed the ship’s huge losses for the loss of the Hong Kong landmark. Accordingly, in the course of the high maintenance costs, the protest movement in 2019 and the corona pandemic, the mountain of debt had grown to 12 million euros. The planned takeover by an amusement park in Hong Kong’s Aberdeen district also failed. The tender on which the kitchen of the “Jumbo Kingdom” and the sister ship “Tai Pak” were located capsized in the port of Aberdeen at the beginning of June.
However, it is doubtful that the “Jumbo Kingdom” can still be saved. “The Standard” reported on Friday that the smuggler’s company considered a salvage impossible. Instead, the ship’s owners and insurers are in talks to let the “Jumbo Kingdom” sink safely into the sea.
Sources: South China Morning Post, Hong Kong Free Press, The Standard