MSC Napoli
 The stranded MSC Napoli
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The MSC Napoli was a container ship under the British flag with her home port in London . It got into distress on January 18, 2007 as a result of hurricane Kyrill in the English Channel .
The ship was owned by Metvale (a subsidiary of tg21 plc ) based in the British Virgin Islands and managed by Zodiac Maritime Agencies in London.
At the time of the distress in the English Channel, the MSC Napoli was chartered for the Mediterranean Shipping Company , which used the ship in its liner service between Europe and South Africa. The ship was en route from Le Havre in France to Sines in Portugal.
details
The ship was built in 1991 under the hull number 1082 at the South Korean shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries in Geoje . The keel laying of the ship took place on April 1, 1991. The completion took place on December 1st of that year. At the time, the ship was considered the first post-Panamax full container ship - due to its width, it was too large to pass the locks in the Panama Canal - and the largest container ship in the world.
The propulsion of the ship consisted of a Sulzer - diesel engine (type: 10RTA84C) with 38,792 kW power . The ship also had a bow thruster .
The ship had seven holds . The deck superstructures and the engine room were located about three quarters of the ship's length aft between hatch 6 and hatch 7.
Previous incidents
Under the name of CMA CGM Normandie , the ship ran into a reef on March 28, 2001 in the Malakka Strait en route from Port Klang (Malaysia) to Jakarta (Indonesia) and was damaged in the front third. To get the ship afloat again, the containers on board had to be unloaded. After 60 days, the ship was towed to the Khanh Hoa shipyard in Vietnam and repaired there until October 2001.
After the ship was back in service, it collided with a pier in Jeddah in December 2001 and was damaged on the port side. The ship ran aground again in August 2002 near Jeddah, but there were only paint abrasions on the hull of the ship.
Distress at sea in the English Channel
On the morning of January 18, 2007, during heavy seas in hurricane Kyrill in the English Channel, a good 80 km south of The Lizard , the ship got into distress after a crack in the side of the ship caused a water ingress in the engine room. The crew of 26 then left the ship and were rescued from the lifeboat by helicopters of the Royal Navy .
The incapacitated ship was to be towed into the port of Portland in Dorset on the same day by two deep-sea tugs. For safety reasons and to prevent the ship from breaking up, the British Coast Guard decided to run the ship aground at Branscombe in a controlled manner.
The investigation report of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) showed that the main cause of the accident was a construction weak point of the ship's hull in the area of the engine room. The rules in force at the time of construction had been complied with, but a later expansion of the design rules for buckling safety had not led to the improvement of the ship in service. According to the accident report, the ship was hit by several heavy breakers in heavy seas , causing an approximately 15 m long, sloping crack in the ship's side on the starboard side.
Controlled stranding and recovery of cargo
On board the ship, which as of 19 January 2007 in Lyme Bay in the south of England with about 30 ° flip side was due, there were 2,318 containers , including a total of 1,684 tonnes of dangerous cargo in 150 containers, mainly pesticides.
Before salvaging the containers could begin, around 4,000 tons of heavy fuel oil were pumped out of the ship. Around 200 tons of oil leaked and polluted sections of the banks in England and France.
When recovering the cargo, priority was given to the 150 or so containers that posed a potential threat to the environment. Around 100 containers went overboard during the hurricane, including two of those classified as harmful. The deliberate stranding on the Devon Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, has been viewed with concern. Its chalk formations represent 185 million years of geological history.
On the beaches at Sidmouth and Branscombe , washed up flotsam (cargo) has been stolen by residents on a large scale since 19 January 2007. The beaches were therefore cordoned off by the police.
According to press reports, on March 9, 2007, 853 of the containers loaded on deck were recovered. The owners of the "MSC Napoli" dispatched a second ship, the "MSC Grace", to transport the recovered containers to Le Havre. The last containers were finally cleared on May 17, 2007.
Salvage of the ship
After the last of the remaining 1,350 containers had been unloaded from the ship on May 17, 2007 and the hull had been provisionally repaired in the accessible places, the Dutch salvage company Smit Internationale picked up the ship on July 9, 2007 and towed it for a further inspection the hull condition 500 meters from the stranding point in deeper water. During the inspection, a 3-meter-wide crack in the fuselage was discovered and towing in this condition was found to be too dangerous because of the risk of uncontrolled breaking apart. The ship was therefore put aground again on July 12 and, after two unsuccessful attempts on July 20, 2007, was divided into two sections by precision explosions at the break point in front of the superstructure.
On August 9, 2007, the bow section was towed to the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast for scrapping, where it arrived on August 14. A complete recovery of the stern section was initially ruled out, so that it should be broken down into smaller segments on site. However, further investigations led to the decision to also transport the stern section to Belfast in one piece. This should be done in November 2007. Since this was not possible, the rear section was dismantled on site. This was completed in July 2009.
Web links
- DNV - ship data (English)
- DNV - detailed film about the technical background of the accident
- MSC Napoli , Investigation Report, MAIB Marine Accident Investigation Branch
- MSC Napoli - The aftermath of the beaching (PDF; 1.8 MB), investigation report, Devon County Council
- Pictures from BBC viewers / listeners
- Zodiac Maritime Agencies - MSC Napoli ( Memento of December 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- BYM News & Magazine - MSC Napoli & the Wreckers with photos - PDF (English; 5.11 MB)
- Devon County Council website with information on the salvage operation ( October 9, 2007 memento on the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ A b DNV Container Ship Update, Napoli - special edition , Det Norske Veritas , April 2008 (PDF; 1.9 MB).
- ↑ a b c Oil to be moved from beached ship , BBC News , January 22, 2007.
- ↑ a b c d Investigation Report MSC Napoli , Marine Accident Investigation Branch , April 2008.
- ↑ Le calme revient après la tempête Kyrill ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Le Figaro , January 19, 2007 (French)
- ^ Crew rescued from stricken ship , BBC News, Jan. 18, 2007.
- ↑ a b Smit International - MSC Napoli , Smit Internationale, July 9, 2007 (Eng.)
- ↑ Pollution watch as ship beaches , BBC News, January 20, 2007.
- ↑ Der Spiegel The Night of the Treasure Hunters , January 23, 2007
- ↑ Tagesschau roadblocks do not deter looters (tagesschau.de archive), January 23, 2007.
- ↑ Containers due to go by October ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Report of the news site Devon24, March 9, 2007 (Eng.).
- ^ Attempts to break Napoli in two , BBC News, July 13, 2007.
- ^ Napoli bow heading for scrapyard , BBC News, August 9, 2007.
- ↑ Ship split after new explosions , BBC News, July 20, 2007.
- ↑ Huge barge to take Napoli remains , BBC News, August 23 of 2007.
- ↑ Napoli salvage is declared over , BBC News, July 30, 2009