Tricolor
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The Tricolor was a car transporter with a loading capacity of up to 6,030 cars that Wallenius Wilhelmsen Lines used worldwide. The ship sank on December 14, 2002 after a collision with the container ship Kariba in the English Channel . Before that, he chartered the Norwegian company Wilh. Wilhelmsen for the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Lines . The ship belonged to the Scottish Capital Bank Plc.
Collision and sinking
Ships involved
- The tricolor
At the time of the accident, there were a total of 24 people on board: the Norwegian captain , a Swedish supercargo and 22 Filipino crew members . In addition, 2,871 new vehicles , mainly from the brands BMW , Volvo and Saab , as well as 77 units of rolling loads were on board. The fuel tanks contained 1,988 m³ of heavy fuel oil and 167 m³ of diesel fuel .
- The Kariba
The Kariba was a 1982 built, 20,829 GT container ship that was flying the flag of the Bahamas at the time of the collision. The ship belonged to the French company Delmas and was used by its subsidiary OT Africa Line in the liner service to West Africa . The ship was scrapped in China in 2003 .
- The clary
The Clary was built in 1979, sailing under the flag of Singapore , 148 meters long bulk carrier. The ship belonged to the shipping company Mineral Shipping in Singapore and was operated by MST Mineralien Schiffahrt Spedition und Transport in Schnaittenbach . The Clary stayed in service for a few years after the collision and was scrapped in July 2011.
course
At around 2.15 a.m. on the morning of December 14, 2002, the Tricolor car transporter and the Kariba container ship collided in thick fog . The Tricolor was on the way from Zeebrugge to Southampton , the Kariba was sailing from Antwerp to Le Havre . Both ships were in the traffic separation area in international waters and were heading west. The third ship involved, the Clary , was en route from Savannah to the Netherlands and was heading north.
The Kariba was badly damaged in the collision, but was able to return to Antwerp on its own. The Tricolor , whose hull on the port side of the bow of the Kariba was also badly damaged, capsized to port and sank in about 30 minutes. All 24 people on board were saved. Three seamen were taken in by the Kariba , the others were rescued by the Belgian tug Boxter, which had rushed to the scene of the accident .
When the Tricolor sank , initially no oil leaked. However, in order to avoid endangering the environment from oil pollution , the Dutch company Smit Salvage was commissioned to pump out the oil in the Tricolor's tanks . The pumping out of the oil began on December 23, 2002. On the same day, the ship was declared a total loss. One day later, on December 24, 2002, the French ordered the salvage of the wreck . France was responsible because the ship had sunk in the economic zone of France.
Since the water at the site of the accident was only about 30 meters deep, the wreck became an obstacle for shipping in the English Channel. At low tide , the starboard side of the ship protruded out of the water. As a result, two cargo ships collided with the wreck, first on December 16, the Nicola sailing under the flag of the Netherlands Antilles , and then on January 1, 2003, the OBO carrier Vicky, sailing under the Turkish flag . The Nicola of the Haren-Emser shipping company Intersee , which was en route to Rotterdam without a load, could only be pulled down from the Tricolor by two tugs after several hours . Vicky , loaded with around 70,000 tons of kerosene , was able to free herself after a few hours. While no oil leaked when the Nicola collided with the wreck, oil leaked from the ship's fuel tanks when the Vicky collided . The holds remained undamaged. Finally, on January 23, one of the salvage tugs collided with the wreck.
Salvage
On February 25, 2003, most of the oil was pumped out of the Tricolor's tanks . The remains should be pumped out or collected during the salvage of the wreck. During the work, oil leaked from the wreck several times, which led to pollution on the coasts of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
For the salvage of the Tricolor was consortium "Combinatie Berging Tricolor", founded the company SMIT Salvage (Netherlands) Scaldis belonged Salvage & Marine Contractors (Belgium), URS Salvage & Marine Contractors (Belgium) Multraship Salvage (Netherlands).
Since the wreck could not be lifted as a whole, it was dismantled into nine parts, and these were lifted individually onto pontoons with the help of floating cranes . The pontoons were then towed to Zeebrugge, where the wreckage was scrapped. A wire saw was used to cut through the wreck ; this was carried out from two working platforms under the hull.
Part of the wreck was severed and lifted in several steps by September 2003. Bad weather repeatedly hindered the rescue, so that the operation could not be completed as planned in October. The rescue was canceled in November 2003. By then, only five of the nine sections of the wreck had been lifted. Bad weather had increasingly hampered the work, which was resumed on May 15, 2004. Since the four sections left at the site of the accident had collapsed during the winter break, they could no longer be recovered as a whole, as in the previous year. The wreckage of the ship and the cargo were lifted from the sea floor with the help of dredgers over the next few months. The manufacturers of those luxury vehicles that were also brought to Zeebrugge for scrapping together with the wreckage of the ship asked the salvage company for discretion. The automakers feared damage to their image if the images of dented or sawed limousines were to go around the world. The rescue company should therefore keep press photographers and cameramen away as far as possible.
On October 27, 2004, the recovery of the Tricolor was finally completed. The value of the ship was given at around 40 million euros, the cargo on board the ship at around 49 million euros. The Tricolor was one of the largest wrecks that ever had to be cleared. During the rescue, experience that SMIT Salvage was able to gain during the rescue of the Kursk in September 2001 could be used.
Causes of Accidents and Legal Proceedings
In the first instance, a US court, before which shareholders of Tricolor had sued for damages, came to the conclusion that the change in course of Kariba was to be regarded as the sole cause of the accident. An appellate court later overturned this ruling and confirmed that all three ships involved had violated the collision prevention rules as a result of the accident : the court found that the Clary had not used an adequate lookout despite the reduced visibility and that it had not fulfilled its obligation to evade the Kariba in good time. The Kariba then suddenly turned to starboard into the Tricolor's route , which was the direct cause of the collision. The Tricolor, on the other hand, overtook the Kariba despite reduced visibility and at only slightly higher speed, although it was able to detect using radar that the Clary might force the Kariba to evade. Furthermore, none of the ships involved gave the sound signals prescribed in poor visibility or tried to establish radio contact with one of the other parties involved. The Clary took off after hitting the scene of the accident without providing assistance, and records have been manipulated to disguise the incident. In a second appeal, a US appellate court upheld in March 2012 that the respective guilt for the collision was shared with 63% for the Kariba , 20% for the Clary and 17% for the Tricolor .
Web links
- Salvaging the Tricolor . ( Memento of April 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (English).
- Website with an embedded video about the recovery ( Memento from February 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
- Video about the rescue to download ( Memento from August 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (WMV, 2:24 min, approx. 7.6 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Otal Investments v. Clary Mst . United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, July 6, 2007. FindLaw for Legal Professionals. Retrieved October 13, 2015.
- ↑ Equasis home page . (English).
- ↑ Freighter collides with sunken car transporter. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 16, 2002. Accessed May 7, 2019.
- ↑ Bulky waste in the fairway . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 2003 ( online ).
- ↑ Jim Austin: The Tricolor / Kariba / Clary Incident . Professional Mariner, March 21, 2008. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
- ^ Otal Investments, Ltd. v. MV tricolor . (PDF; 37.6 kB) United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Docket No. 08-3031-cv (L), 08-3032-cv (XAP) & 08-3324-cv (CON); accessed on May 11, 2017.
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 0 ″ N , 2 ° 12 ′ 7 ″ E