The 12,974gt/2010 built bulk carrier Nordika Desgagnes suffered a steering failure off Nova Scotia on 15th March. The 143m long ship was taken under tow off Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and the

Canadian Coast Guard vessel CCGS Sir Wilfred Grenfell stood by until being relieved by the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent.

On 19th March the 88,586gt/2012 built and 8,000 TEU capacity Hapag-Lloyd ship Tolten didn’t make the best arrival at the Port of Karachi when she side-swiped the 71,786gt/2009 built moored container vessel Hamburg Bay whilst manoeuvring to berth ahead of the latter ship. Several containers toppled from the Tolten into the harbour causing the port to be closed until they were retrieved.

On 20th March the 1,521gt/1985 built low air draught coaster Britannica Hav was struck by the Belgian flagged fishing vessel Deborah at 1540 local time about 50 nautical miles northeast of Cherbourg, France and to the south-west of the Dover Strait. The coaster sustained a hull breach amidships on her port side and the ingress of water caused the ship to capsize. The seven crew from the Maltese-flagged freighter evacuated to two life rafts and were recovered by the fishing vessel. The wreck was drifting and the French rescue tug Abeille Liberté was dispatched to the scene and towed the upturned wreck to Le Havre (above).

On 24th March the 50,688gt/2001 built Laura Maersk adopted the Tolten’s style at the Port of Callao when her bow collided with the stern of the berthed 113,112gt/2017 built MSC Shuba B as she arrived at the port.

Three days later the 25,715gt/2017 built containership Delphis Gdansk and the 24,050gt/2010 built bulk carrier BBC Neptune collided in Denmark’s Great Belt deep water shipping lane between the islands of Zealand and Funen. The impact caused 7 containers to fall into the water from the 178m container vessel and a small fire broke out aboard the BBC Neptune, but was quickly extinguished.

The fire ravaged Triple-E Class ship Maersk Honam was due to be towed to Jebel Ali where her undamaged cargo could be offloaded. It was understood that this would take place around two weeks after the fire on board had been fully extinguished. The 153,153gt/ 353m ship was only delivered in 2017 and caught fire on 6th March in the Arabian Sea whilst en-route to the Mediterranean Sea, via the Suez Canal. Maersk Line confirmed that the incident had claimed the lives of five crew members with the remains of three out of four of the missing crew members found aboard the ship.

On 3rd April the 159,990gt/2002 built super-tanker Abqaiq came under attack in the Southern Red Sea while underway in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Details of the attack were unclear, but the incident is likely to be related to the on-going conflict in Yemen. The ship reported an explosion but the cause was unconfirmed. A coalition warship conducted a swift intervention that repelled the attack during which the tanker was subjected to a slight but ineffective hit and she resumed her course northwards to Ain El-Sukhna, Egypt, where she was likely to discharge her cargo at the SUMED transit pipeline as intended.

The Bosphorus Strait was closed to transit traffic on 7th April after a 225m long, Maltese-flagged bulk carrier crashed into the historic 18th century waterfront mansion Hekimbaşı Salih Efendi on the shoreline in the Anadolu Hisarı area of the S-shaped Strait (above). The ship‘s rudder jammed, disabling the 38,732gt/2001 built Vitaspirit and causing substantial damage to the building that she had the misfortune of hitting

Editor’s Note: In the May edition we featured a photo of Celtic Spirit. Credit should have been given to Christopher Triggs. I apologise for this omission.