MSC Zoe loses 270 containers in North Sea

Have they ever established if MSC Zoe touched bottom?

No. Dead silence until now, so far nothing has been communicated about what the cause was of the loss of so many containers. Touching the sea bottom would probably cause hull damage. The ship didnot dock but maybe divers inspected the hull for damage. We will have to sit and wait.

It is new to me that MSC hired a Dutch salvage company to bring the lost containers and items ashore. They do this according to a Master Target List provided by Rijkswaterstaat that is based upon the objects found by survey ships in a area of 3000 km2. More information can be found in this Google translated webpage.

Researchers are convinced that part of the containers has been driven far away. ‘If the load is only a tiny bit heavier than water, it can take a long time before such a container ends up on the bottom. It roams around under water and can get far. Even in half a day you can be a few miles away.’

It is estimated that a small part of the containers will never be found again or only in years. If they end up in an area where the soil behaves very dynamically, there is a chance that they will be buried under the sand over time. That can happen very well, especially in the area of ​​the Wadden which is always in motion with, among other things, walking channels. If a heavy storm comes over it, the whole thing can be opened up and things can be released into the water again.

Until now 58 containers have so far not been located. An estimated total of about a third of the debris has not yet been found. Volunteers, local contractors and civil servants have so far collected almost as much MSC Zoe waste as the professional salvagers in the North Sea.

I bet it will turn up on the Norwegian coast somewhere.

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The victimized Wadden Islands want 225,000 euros, peanuts, in damages from MSC, the Swiss owner of the ship that lost 342 containers in the North Sea in early January. As a result, the coast of the islands became heavily polluted. Mayor Wassink, the Terschelling’s spokesperson, has confirmed the claim. The MSC shipping company promised to compensate the damage immediately after the accident, but so far no word or money has been received.

The islands Ameland and Schiermonnikoog had previously submitted a claim of 36,000 euros for costs incurred. That was rejected without giving any reasons by the insurer of shipping company MSC. After the containers were knocked overboard, an enormous amount of waste was washed up on the Wadden Islands and the Frisian and Groningen coasts. Around 2 million kilos were collected until the beginning of this month, although not all containers have yet been salvaged. Natuurmonumenten spoke of ‘an unprecedented catastrophe’.

Even if the shipping company would rely on its liability limitation, MSC would in any case be liable for almost € 90 million for the damage caused by the “MSC Zoe” incident. The liability limit of a ship depends on the size of the ship. A certain number of units is allocated per ton, expressed in Special Drawing Rights. The first 2,000 tonnes of a ship are the most heavily taxed and an ever-lower tax is charged for all subsequent tonnes. The Special Drawing Rights can be converted into an amount in euros and thus form the limit from which MSC could limit itself. It should noted that shortly after the incident MSC promised to pay for all costs made for the cleaning operation.

I would either seize a MSC container ship or forbid them to enter Dutch ports. We would loose tonnage, so be it, probably to Antwerp but they have to make extra costs to ship the containers from there to Rotterdam. I don’t think there customers are willing to pay for these extra costs.

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Sounds like a good solution. However, doing that might increase the street price of cocaine in Holland.

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The route into Antwerp down the Schelde is mostly through Dutch waters is it not?

Follow the money. Who is benefiting by not holding MSC to account?

Sociopaths who judge success in life by how much money and power they can accumulate regardless of the consequences and the patronizing investors who profit from their arrogance?

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Sorry, not our business!

Good question but the Public Prosecuter is currently conducting criminal investigations into the container loss of the MSC Zoe so if all is well they will probably be held accountable.

With the criminal investigation into the “MSC Zoe”, the Dutch government may want to prevent MSC from invoking the liability limitation of the shipowner. If the shipping company invokes this, the Netherlands could pay for the clean-up costs.

The cleaning is mostly done by volunteers.

The entire North Sea coast will be cleaned again from 1 to 15 August. There are a total of 31 stages. Every stage is about 5 to 10 km long and as much waste as possible is removed from the beach. Especially the islands beaches will be targeted as a lot of waste from the MSC Zoe is still washing up almost every day.

Still no payment from MSC. We should dump the debris at the entrance of the posh MSC office in Switzerland, maybe that will help.

From the first part of a documentary which was shown this night on Dutch TV three new interesting facts were mentioned:

  • The suspicion is that a number of the thousands and thousands of containers were not properly lashed. Lashing of thousands of containers on such a mega ship is a time consuming, tedious job and mistakes can be easily made.

  • The VDR was found to be defective or switched off which is hindering the investigation. It could shed some light on the fact why it took the ship four hours before giving notice about the loss of the containers to a German coast station. The bulk of the containers were dropped just to the North of the Dutch islands.

  • Divers told the research journalists that the hull was damaged “on a spot which impaired the safety of the ship.” That is then below the waterline. Earlier I wrote in one if my posts about my suspicion that the ship had hit the sea bottom, the route they took was unsuitable for such big ships. The water depth above Borkum and in the East bound lane is in some places not more than 20 m. With a beam of 60 m and a draft of 14 m a roll of only 11.5° is enough to touch the sea bottom.

The second part of the documentary will follow later this month, stay tuned.

Since the accident with the container ship MSC Zoe, shipping company MSC has opted for a different route to German ports, a news agency discovered. A shipping company spokesperson said they made the choice “despite the fact that we consider the southern route safe.”

Safe? I think that the accident offers enough proof that this route is unsafe for that kind of ships. What I don’t understand is why the Dutch government has not officially closed the southern route for mega ships.

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There is no Dutch vts at the turn at Vlieland Junction so they would have to establish one. German Bight traffic starts at borkumriff but by then you are halfway there.

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A mandatory (after nearly a year) Joint Interim Investigation Report by the Dutch and German authorities is online >>>

https://www.bsu-bund.de/SharedDocs/pdf/EN/Investigation_Report/2019/Interim_Investigation_Report_3_19.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2

They seem to be far away from the Final Report.

For a result of almost one year’s work by quite a few people this is pretty flimsy information that prompts me to ask: Is that all?

The only new fact is that the VDR data has been saved after all. There were earlier statements saying that the VDR was out of order and the data lost.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: MSC Zoe Incident Report Released

A post was split to a new topic: Captain MSC Zoe not guilty of losing North Sea containers