The Monarch, a 166 foot oil-supply boat, sank in Cook Inlet, Alaska on Thursday morning.  The moored vessel started taking on water after it bumped into Granite Point platform.  The platform is owned by Chevron Corp, while the Monarch itself is owned by Ocean Marine Services Inc., which is based out of Kirkland Washington.

According to the Coast Guard it received a mayday from the boat’s captain early Thursday morning.  Seven rig workers abandoned ship to the platform, only to be lifted from the platform by helicopter, along with seven platform crew as a precaution.  According to Coast Guard spokesperson Sara Francis, ice had pinned the Monarch against a leg of the platform, making the platform possibly unsafe.

Francis also said that some of the boat’s 35,000 gallons of diesel fuel did spill and unfortunately because of the amount of ice and the extreme tides that are seen in Cook Inlet it was impossible to place containment booms.

There has been a unified command team assembled in order to deal with the sunken vessel and the oil that was spilled. The U.S. Coast Guard, Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation and Ocean Marine Services Inc make up the response team, which is in the process of developing a plan to salvage the Monarch.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 38,000 of diesel the Monarch was carrying would dissolve and evaporate from the Cook Inlet waters within 12 hours, so the environmental ramifications will hopefully be limited as it is not thought that the complete 38,000 were spilled.

While there were no serious injuries in the accident the Monarch’s chief engineer was treated for contact with diesel fuel and exhaust inhalation.  He has since been released.  The Coast Guard is investigating the cause of the incident.