After having abandoned 517 containers fallen overboard the Svendborg Maersk on February 14, 2014 off Brest, the Danish shipping company Maersk is reoffending today with the wrecks of the Maersk Searcher and Maersk Shipper while they were sailing in a convoy from Denmark towards the demolition yards of Aliaga, Turkey. The 2 offshore supply tugs were towed by the Maersk Battler which was, according to informations collected by Robin des Bois, also doomed to be demolished in Turkey.
Regrettably, the French Maritime Authority for the Atlantic Region allowed the transit of this convoy of crippled ships in the French Exclusive Economic Zone in the middle of winter. One more time, the world’s largest shipping company has preferred for profitable purposes to send end-of-life ships to shipbreaking yards outside the European Union. It would have been much safer with regard to maritime safety and to the protection of the marine environnent to send the 3 ships to the recycling facilities of Grenaa and Esbjerg in Denmark or Ghent in Belgium which have the proper equipment to deal with ships of this type and size. There are no small profits, it’s probably in order to save on fioul and management costs for 2 crews that Maersk carried out this risky towing operation of 2 ships to be broken up in Turkey by another ship to be broken up.
The supposed depollution of the 2 ships that sank today has to be verified. The report of the Danish Maritime Investigation Board may provide information on this issue within a few months. In any case, these wrecks represent an additional risk for fishing boats to get gripped and there are now 2 new underwater sites polluted with toxic paints, waste electrical and electronic equipment and residual hydrocarbons.
| Maersk Shipper. IMO 9169483. Offshore supply tug. Length 82 m. Danish flag. Classification society Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Built in 1999 in Singapore by Keppel Shipyard. Sunk. |  1 |
| Maersk Searcher. IMO 9191369. Offshore supply tug. Length 82 m. Danish flag. Classification society Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Built in 1999 in Singapore by Keppel Shipyard. Sunk. |  2 |
| Maersk Battler. IMO 9144330. Offshore supply tug. Length 85 m. Danish flag. Classification society Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Built in 1997 in Flekkefjord (Norway) by SIMEK. She resumed her voyage towards Turkey without being diverted to Brest by the French Maritime authorities for the purposes of investigation. |  3 |
Photo credits: 1 Sydney Sinclair / 2 Marine Traffic / 3 Bobjack-Shipspotting
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