Beached vessel releasing oil, containers

Beached vessel releasing oil, containers Nearly 200 tons of oil has leaked from the 4,427-TEU container ship “MSC Napoli,” which is beached off England’s Devon coast.
   The ship suffered structural damage and lost power when its engine room flooded amid fierce weather conditions in the English Channel on Thursday.
   The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) decided on Friday to beach the vessel and ballast it down east of Sidmouth to prevent the ship sinking in deep waters and enable salvage work on the vessel and cargo to take place.
   The 1992-built ship, operated by Mediterranean Shipping Co. on charter from Zodiac Maritime between North Europe and South Africa via the Canary Islands, was carrying 2,394 containers, and the MCA said that 158 containers are known to have been lost overboard, with two containing “dangerous but low-risk” goods.
   The MCA said that 63 of the “lost” containers have been identified and their positions plotted while 49 have been identified by their reference number so that their contents are now known. The contents and stowage positions of 98 percent of the cargo manifest have now also been identified, the MCA said.
   The salvage team has managed to further secure the vessel by deploying a starboard ground anchor and has accessed the No. 6 port tank. It is now believed that the oil spilled from small tanks within the flooded engine room space and not from the ship’s bunker tanks of heavy fuel oil.
   Coastguard officials said the ship’s remaining oil needs to be heated before it can be pumped into a waiting vessel, a process the agency hopes will start in the next day or two.