Other Maritme Mishaps and Adventures

The world will get a chance to find out the effect on a coral reef of tons of sugar being pumped on it, as reported here. The Zhi Qiang carrying a load of sugar, smacked into a reef off Papua New Guinea and, in order to free the ship, the suger had to be dumped. If we see coral with lots of cavities, we know what to blame.

And in the US, a 670 foot ship had steering troubles and ran aground off Mayport, Florida, as set out here:

The Horizon Discovery, a container ship, ran into rocks at the Little Jetties Park off Ocean Street Tuesday night. Early reports indicate mechnical failure caused the problem.

At the port of East London, South Africa, a cargo ship ran aground several weeks ago as it was leaving port. Cargo, fuel and other oils have been removed to try to lighten the ship for removal from the rocks (and it's well up on the rocks- see photo). Most recent indications, here, are that the ship will be removed, but no one seems quite certain as to how that will be accomplished.

Dismantling old ships is much in the news, as evidenced by "ghost ships" stories from England and a "toxic ship" story from Turkey.

In England, 13 former U.S. Navy ships are awaiting scrapping amid some controversy, as reported here and here. Why ae the U.S. ships in England? The latter link reports:

An American subsidiary of Able UK won the contract to recycle 13 of the obsolete ships, and chose to carry out the work at Able's Hartlepool shipyard.

Environmental campaigners say the US has the technology to do the work.

But the UK's Environment Agency initially agreed to the transfer on the basis that all approvals were in place.

It subsequently transpired they were not - so new consents must be sought.

Concerns are, of course environmental and include issues of lead, asbestos, mercury, etc.

Turkey has something of similar problem, as the Netherlands is sending a "toxic" ship its way, as reported here and Turkey has agreed to accept it over the howls of environmentalists. And Turkey has its eye on a bigger ship dismantling prize:

France is searching for a country to disassemble its 270 retired war ships. “They came and we showed the facilities. If we could only reach an agreement;,so the Turkish economy could earn income from the deal.”