Maritime Safety, including Container-Ships

Les grands voiliers transportaient de la soie, du camphre, de la cannelle. Aujourd’hui, les géants des mers transportent du nucléaire en bonbonnes, du chimique en citernes, du gaz en cuves. Ils sont des sites Seveso transocéaniques. Gigantisme, cargaisons dangereuses, pavillons sous-normes, car-ferries poubelles, équipages novices au bout du rouleau ou de la routine : le transport maritime est un cruel pourvoyeur de pertes humaines, le vecteur caché des risques industriels et une source quotidienne de pertes de marchandises en mer.

MSC Flaminia : to remove the doubts about radioactivity

23 Aug 2012

MSC Flaminia

Press release no. 4

Inspection of the damaged container ship before she crosses the English Channel and the North Sea will take place in the coming days.

German experts along with British, Dutch and French specialists shall examine the condition of the vessel, her containers and her cargo.

Robin des Bois wishes this expertise to be completed by a radiological diagnosis of the ship. Hundreds of containers are damaged and the charterer of MSC Flaminia, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), is known to occasionally transport radioactive materials. The company is also known for a lack of transparency when it comes to publishing, when required, an inventory of transported goods. In November 1997, the MSC Carla broke in two off the Azores during a journey from Le Havre to Boston. MSC have remained silent with regards to the nature of the cargo, and it was three days after the accident that the French Nuclear Installations Safety Directorate (DSIN) announced that three sealed radioactive sources for use in American hospitals were aboard MSC Carla; they sank with the fore section, whilst the aft section was towed to the Canary Islands.

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The MSC Flaminia en route to Germany

20 Aug 2012

MSC Flaminia
Press release no. 3

The MSC Flaminia could find refuge in Bremerhaven, Germany. Bremerhaven not only has docks avalaible for unloading MSC Flaminia, a process that will take several weeks, but also a dry dock for emergency repairs. The normal stopover time for a container ship of this size is a few hours. This remote destination requires the convoy to cross the English Channel and the North Sea. Germany is taking its responsibility as the MSC Flaminia flies the German flag. It is unfortunate that France, the United Kingdom and other countries closer to the current position of the MSC Flaminia were unable or unwilling to take charge of the ship.

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Lead medal for the European Union

10 Aug 2012

MSC Flaminia
Press release n° 2

The container ship MSC Flaminia that suffered an accident on 14th July 2012 is located 450 km to the west of Brest. She is carrying 2,876 containers and thousands of tonnes of propulsion fuel. The towing convoy is awaiting a possible destination other than the depths of the Atlantic. Will the records for wandering the high seas held by the Kharg V and the Castor be beaten?

The Kharg V, an Iranian oil tanker that fell into difficulties on 19th December 1989, had been refused entry to the waters of Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Senegal and Cape Verde. It was not until 6th February 1990 that transfer of the cargo on board Kharg V was completed, on the high seas off Sierra Leone, on to another Iranian tanker.

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MSC Flaminia – Open letter to concerning parties

31 Jul 2012

Urgent message addressed to the French and British governments and to the European Commission.

Mr Jean-Marc Ayrault
Mr David Cameron
Mr Siim Kallas
Mr Janez Potocnik

Dear Sirs,

Since July 14th 2012, following a fire and two explosions the container ship MSC Flaminia is in distress, in the North Atlantic. For the time being no place of refuge has been designated to receive the vessel which in addition to her containers is carrying several thousand tonnes of bunker oil. Robin des Bois is asking the coastal States of the Atlantic and the Channel to cooperate with the aim of facilitating the progression of the MSC Flaminia into Exclusive Economic Zones and territorial waters and to ease the entrance of the convoy into a port or place of refuge. Under these circumstances the practice of ping-pong with the MSC Flaminia from one side of the Channel to the other is only increasing the risk of a shipwreck and marine pollution. For more information on the subject Robin des Bois invites you to read “A Shelter for the MSC Flaminia” published yesterday.

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A shelter for the MSC Flaminia

30 Jul 2012

A shelter for the MSC Flaminia

Since July 14th 2012 the container ship MSC Flaminia is in distress in the North Atlantic. Her cargo consists of 2,876 containers of which an unknown percentage contains dangerous materials. The lack of information to the public on the vessel’s loads is all the more surprising as she set sail from Charleston in the United States of America where transit conditions and container loading have the reputation of being the strictest in the world since (9/11) September 11, 2001. One of the containers onboard the MSC Flaminia caught fire which resulted in an explosion in the middle of the vessel. The first explosion was followed by a second four days later. The fire spread to at least another two holds as it raged for 9 days. Two sailors are dead (one is missing and the other died from severe burns) and another three are injured. The container ship was abandoned by the crew. The eventual loss of containers at sea is unknown.

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When Life Gives You Bremens…

12 Jan 2012

When Life Gives You Bremens…

The cutting out of the cargo ship is a provocation regarding every observer endowed with common sense. The photos of the demolition demonstrate that even while the wreckage has its keel in the water, the shearing continues. The images of the polluted scrap metal floating in the sea water are overwhelming. They prove that the idea men and the workers on site disregard the marine environment, underestimating the effects of the contamination of the ecosystem and of the neighbouring marine communities by micro-pollutants from lead paint and operational residue from the ship itself. This shearing phase of the ship in the waves is comparable to rinsing scrap metal in the sea.

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TK Bremen: Robin Des Bois draws out a prefectural mandate on emergency conservation efforts.

9 Jan 2012

Following the Robin des Bois press conference this morning at 10:00 AM at Brest, the prefecture of Morbihan made public on their website at 2:34 PM the prefectural mandate regarding emergency conservation efforts surrounding the worksite for the deconstruction of the cargo ship TK Bremen. The recipient of this prefectural mandate is the ship owner, Blue Atlantic Shipping, ltd. based in Malta.

Robin des Bois estimates that the emergency conditions invoked by the prefecture are intended to precipitate work upon the demolition of the TK Bremen, to know the fragility of the hull, are not one in the same. If there is an emergency, it is to erase as fast as possible the traces of errors made at the time of the casting off of the ship and its navigation in the afternoon of December 15, 2011 and the night of the 16th.

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The TK Bremen Situation

9 Jan 2012

A Demolition Derby
The demolition of the TK Bremen on French territory is a spectacular example of the administrative simplification so dear to the government. The dumping of this industrial waste amounting to 2,000 tons is containing asbestos in several forms, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), hydrocarbon traces, lead paint, mercury and tin are not submitted to French and European control’s temporary authorization for a Classified Facility for the Protection of the Environment. The guidelines of the Bale Convention and the International Maritime Organization on the dismantlement of ships are not being respected. Robin des Bois requests that the prefect of Morbihan, the maritime prefecture, and the labor inspectors publish the map of dangerous waste present on the TK Bremen, if it exists.

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Everything about TK Bremen

21 Dec 2011

Everything about TK Bremen

TK Bremen (ex-Melinau Satu, ex-Melinau, ex-Elm). IMO 8113487. General cargo. Length 109 meters. Maltese flag. Classification society Bureau Veritas. Built in 1982 at Pusan (South Korea) by Dae Sun SB & E Co. her Turkish ship owner Adriyatik GemiIsletmeciligi controls 8 ships, all Maltese-flagged, built between 1982 and 1985. Each of them is officially the property of “single ship company” except in the TK Bremen’s case where it happens to be a “double ship company”, Blue Atlantic Shipping, ltd., also holds the TK London. The financial damages provoked by the drifting and beaching of the TK Bremen are chargeable to this single company based in the European Union at Malta.

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A Cargo Ship on the Beach

17 Dec 2011

In referring to Article R 304-11 of the Code of Maritime Ports (1), the Port Authority of the port of Lorient – Morbihan – could have proceeded with the postponement of the departure of the TK Bremen. In effect, this 30 year-old ship had reached the age of demolition. She presented numerous deficiencies. The absence of panels on the entire hold, as was demonstrated before by aerial photos – might be one more of them. The ship had been recently detained in a Russian port and its Turkish ship owner, proprietor of two older ships, did not immediately furnish all of the guarantees of reliability. The profile of the TK Bremen was such that those responsible for the security and of the traffic of the port of Lorient should have, in view of the imminent dangers about to confront them in a dangerous maritime environment rich in marine life, banned its departure.

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