Update: Fires at Sea – MSC Flaminia Finally Allowed To Come Home & Chamarel Salvage Underway

Updates to two sets of recent posts:  After considerable delay the container ship  MSC Flaminia is being allowed into a port of refuge.  Authorities have granted permission for the German flagged ship to be towed into German waters. Following a safety inspection … Continue reading

Legendary Cable Layer, Chamarel (ex CS Vercors), On Fire & Abandoned Off Namibia’s Skeleton Coast

France Telecom-Orange announced today that an unexplained fire had broken out on Thursday on the cable laying ship, the Chamarel, in the Atlantic Ocean off Namibia’s Skeleton Coast in the Atlantic Ocean.   The crew of 56 abandoned ship after attempts at firefighting … Continue reading

Western Africa’s Graveyards of Ships

Recently the BBC published an article, Nigeria’s coast ‘threatened by shipwrecks’, focused on the 100 rusty shipwrecks which line Nigeria’s 853km (530-mile) coast.   The ships are causing coastal erosion and pollution. Nigeria is not the only country on the West coast of Africa with “graveyard of … Continue reading

Gold and Ivory Shipwreck on a Beach of Diamonds

The October 2009 National Geographic magazine has a fascinating story of a 16th century shipwreck on a beach in southern Namibia.  In 1533 a  Portuguese trading ship carrying a fortune in gold and ivory, bound for the famed spice ports of India, was swept ashore and wrecked … Continue reading