Жаңа Зеландия жағалауындағы «Михаил Лермонтов» кемесінің апатқа ұшырауы

Soviet cruise liner wrecked in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand

MS Mikhail Lermontov was an ocean liner owned by the Soviet Union's Baltic Shipping Company, built in 1972 by V. E. B. Mathias Thesen Werft, Wismar, East Germany. It was later converted into a cruise ship. On 16 February 1986 it collided with rocks near Port Gore in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand, and sank, claiming the life of one of its crew members.

MS Mikhail Lermontov, launched in 1972, was the last of the five "poet" ships: , , (later became Marco Polo), and Mikhail Lermontov, named after famous Ukrainian, Georgian and Russian writers (Ivan Franko and Taras Shevchenko being Ukrainian, and Shota Rustaveli being Georgian), built to the same design at V. E. B. Mathias Thesen Werft, Wismar, East Germany. Mikhail Lermontov, born 1814 and died 1841, was known as the "poet of Caucasus." MS Mikhail Lermontov was originally used as an ocean liner on the Leningrad–New York run. However, the Soviet government realised that there was more money to be made by converting it to a cruise ship, and the accommodation and facilities on board were significantly upgraded in 1982 to meet the expectations of western customers.

On 16 February 1986 Mikhail Lermontov was cruising in New Zealand for the CTC cruise company. On that day it left Picton for the Marlborough Sounds, carrying mostly elderly Australian passengers. The Picton pilot, Don Jamison (who was also a Picton harbourmaster), piloted the ship out of Picton. His presence, and his knowledge of the area, should have assured the safety of MS Mikhail Lermontov. Hugging the shoreline to give the Australian passengers a good view of the area, Jamison continued towards the cape. About one mile from Cape Jackson, Jamison made the decision to take MS Mikhail Lermontov through the passage. A Russian officer questioned the decision, but the harbour master assured him it would be a safe course, and at the time the decision was made the ship was still within the harbour limits. Little more is known of the circumstances of the wrecking, even to the retirement of Jamison in 2006.

On 6 February 1986, Mikhail Lermontov sailed from Sydney on the beginning of a two week cruise around New Zealand, carrying 372 passengers and a crew of 348, which combined to a total of 743 people. On the evening of 16 February, Mikhail Lermontov was sailing past Cape Jackson, on the northeastern shore of New Zealand's South Island, about 30 mile (48 km) northwest of Wellington. At 5:37 pm, travelling at , Mikhail Lermontov struck rocks about below the waterline on its port side. By 8:30 pm, passengers began to abandon ship, with the aid of the crew and local rescue vessels. The passengers were transferred to several ships in the area, including the LPG tanker (Captain Reedman) and the SeaRail road rail ferry DEV Arahura (Capt John Brew). As darkness set in MS Mikhail Lermontov listed further to starboard. Within 20 minutes of the last passenger being rescued, the ship had disappeared completely, sinking at approximately 10:27pm, 4 hours and 50 minutes after running aground. The sinking resulted in one casualty, 33 year old crew engineer Pavel Zagladimov, who went down with the ship. The coroner's report lists his official cause of death as 'unknown', as his remains were never found. Eleven of those rescued had minor injuries.

MS Mikhail Lermontov rests where it sank, lying on its starboard side in depths reaching up to a maximum of about It is popular with scuba divers and the site is served by local dive shops in Picton and Kaikōura. It is also one of the biggest, easily accessible, diveable ship wrecks in the world. The dives range from an easy depth at the top of the wreck, through to deep penetration and decompression dives to depths of It is possible to enter the wreck, especially in the open public areas accessible from the port side windows near the top of the wreck, although care must be taken and guides familiar with the wreck are highly recommended, especially for enclosed overhead environments and where entanglement hazards may exist. Closed circuit diving is recommended to avoid causing reduced visibility when entering enclosed areas such as restaurants, crew messes, and shopping arcades. Three divers are known to have died while exploring the ship, including one diver whose body is still possibly trapped inside.

The disaster was the subject of the celebrated Australian restitution case Baltic Shipping Company v Dillon (The Mikhail Lermontov) (1993) 176 CLR 344, in which Mrs Dillon, having already been awarded damages for loss to both her possessions and person, as well as a pro rata refund on her cruise ticket, claimed restitution for the remaining value of her ticket on the basis of failure of consideration. Rejecting proposed analyses of the cruise as an entire obligation, and alternatively as a payment conditional on performance, the High Court re affirmed the rule that failure of consideration must be total in order for a claim for restitution to be sustained. Simply put, Mrs Dillon could not deny the benefit she received during her first eight days on the cruise. Furthermore, the court, following earlier English authority, held that full damages and complete restitution will not be given for the same breach of contract. The now abolished forms of action cast a long shadow: a claim for money had and received evolved from the writ of indebitatus assumpsit, a legal fiction that the parties had an implied agreement that upon discharge for breach or frustration that the subject matter of the original agreement would be returned. An alternative form of action lay in debt. In Holmes v Hall (1677) 2 Mod 260, it was recognised that where concurrent claims existed and a claim in assumpsit indebitatus was available, the claim in assumpsit operated to exclude other claims. In the 'modern' language of Dutch v Warren (1720) 1 Stra 406, '[the defendant] has given the plaintiff an option to disaffirm the contract, and recover the consideration he was paid for it in the same manner as if it had never existed but then the contract must be totally rescinded ;since otherwise, the contract is affirmed by the plaintiff's having received part of that equivalent for which he has paid his consideration, and it is then reduced to a mere question of damages proportionate to the extent to which it remains unperformed.'