Cork's grounded ghostship: 'There will be hell to pay if we have a marine disaster'
A local takes a break from his walk to inspect the cargo ship MV Alta on rocks near the village of Ballycotton, Co Cork. Pictures: Oisín Keniry
The State has learned little about how to deal effectively with marine wreck incidents since the Kowloon Bridge disaster over three decades ago and the Irish coast remains exposed to a potential marine disaster, a leading international maritime expert has warned.
Michael Kingston, a global expert in maritime law, said the fact that the wreck of the MV Alta ghostship remains stuck fast on the Cork coast almost two years since it ran aground, proves how inadequate the official State's response to such incidents is.
And for an island state, that is shameful, he said.
“We must realise that our southwestern coastline, with the Fastnet Rock as its nexus, is one of the busiest T-junctions in the world with massive movement of ships, north, south, east and west from that point,” he said.
"And it is not as if we have not had several severe warnings already, and do not need the Ever Given, which ran aground in the Suez canal or the Wakashio, which ran aground off Mauritius, to inform us.
“The mess in Ballycotton, and our State’s failure to deal with it, demonstrates how we have learnt nothing from previous major incidents — again off Cork — the MV ‘Kowloon Bridge’ in 1986, and MV Betelgeuse’ 1979.
“Not only do we not have a proper response system in place, to prevent such situations turning from a possible salvage and refloating, to an inevitable wreck, but the overall approach to maritime regulation and safety of our mariners and search and rescue personnel is appalling.
“In the absence of a coordinated state response from a single unified authority or body, it appears that no one wants to take responsibility for incidents like Ballycotton and as a result, shipwrecks are left to rot where they lie.”
The grounding of a modern-day ‘ghost-ship’ east of Ballycotton in February 2020 made international headlines but Mr Kingston believes the State’s response to it, and how it deals with maritime incidents and accidents in general, should also be the focus of attention and scrutiny so that vital regulatory improvements are implemented.
West Cork-born but London-based, Mr Kingston is an internationally recognised expert in maritime law who has worked with the Maritime Safety Division of the United Nations’ International Maritime Organisation on Fishing Vessel Safety and the related issue of illegal unreported and unregulated Fishing, and on polar issues.
He is a special adviser to the Arctic Council’s Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment Working Group on maritime safety which involves liaising with governments in the United States, Canada, Russian Federation, Norway, Sweden, Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, and Iceland.
He has also represented the government of Iceland on the world correspondence group of interested parties that is drafting guidelines for the implementation of the Cape Town Agreement for Fishing Vessel Safety.
He is a regular contributor to global media outlets on marine incidents and accidents, most recently, the grounding of the MV Ever Given in the Suez canal.
When he speaks, governments listen.
When he advises, governments act.
For him, it’s more than a career. It’s personal.
Mr Kingston lost his father, Tim, in the Whiddy oil disaster in January 1979.
That disaster, that intensely personal loss, has shaped both his personal and his professional life, which has seen him work and campaign globally and here at home, for improved maritime safety and improved regulatory frameworks.
It is, as he says himself, a “burden that I did not ask to carry”.
He says his life’s work, given the circumstances of his father’s tragic death, lent to many people affected by other maritime tragedies contacting him for help getting answers.
That campaigning work has seen him turn his attention in recent years to the status of Ireland’s Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) — the board which investigates marine incidents, accidents and tragedies, and which also investigated the grounding of the MV Alta.
Mr Kingston’s involvement in calls for regulatory reforms here intensified following a Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling in July 2020, which found the Department of Transport to be in breach of regulations regarding investigating maritime tragedies.
Under an EU directive, investigations must be carried out with sufficient maritime competence and by an independent body.
The CJEU ruling found that the presence of two Transport department civil servants on the State’s five-person MCIB represented an obvious conflict of interest.
Legislation, the General Scheme of the Merchant Shipping (Investigation of Marine Casualties) (Amendment) Bill 2020, was drawn up to resolve the matter but Mr Kingston raised concerns about elements of it and was invited to give expert evidence before the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications last July as part of the pre-legislative scrutiny process.
As that work continued, the MCIB published its final report into the MV Alta incident in March 2021.
That report simply served to underline Mr Kingston’s concerns about the existing regulatory framework here.
And the fact that the wreck has still not been dealt with points to much wider systemic problems, he says.
The MCIB’s report states that Ireland’s legal framework for the removal of wrecks is governed by the 2007 ‘Nairobi Convention on the Removal of Wrecks’.
But Mr Kingston said Ireland has not ratified that yet, so it has no legal standing in Ireland.
"The report is an embarrassment and should be withdrawn,” he said.
He says his criticism is not directed at the individuals involved in the process but at the system which causes this lack of competence because it is so out of line with international best practice.
The MCIB also lacks critical resources when compared with the structures and resources in place to investigate aviation incidents, he says.
And so, as the second anniversary of the ghostship’s grounding approaches, and against the backdrop of this deficient regulatory framework, there appears to be little or no willingness on the part of any agency to deal with the shipwreck, with each one apparently passing the buck to another.
Concerns are also mounting that the vessel may not survive another set of winter storms, and could break up and drift out to sea, posing a risk to marine traffic.
The MV Alta had been adrift at sea for 496 days and had drifted over 2,300 nautical miles before it arrived in Ballyandreen Bay near Ballycotton on the morning of February 15, 2020, as Storm Dennis began to batter Ireland.
The ship was driven onto rocks the following day, triggering immediate environmental concerns. It has remained stuck fast there ever since.
The MCIB’s final report, published on March 3, 2021, shows that the 77.32m merchant ship, built in 1976, had a long and complex maritime, naming and ownership history.
It departed Greece in early September 2018 bound for Haiti but on September 19 it suffered a main engine failure which the crew were unable to repair.
On October 1, 2018, when the ship was about 1,380 miles southeast of Bermuda, the crew requested assistance and a rescue operation, coordinated by Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre, Rescue Coordination Centre was launched.
Attempts by the vessel owners to hire and dispatch tugs from Venezuela, Guyana, and Bahamas were unsuccessful.
The ship’s crew reported that their supplies were low, and on October 2, a United States Coast Guard (USCG) aircraft dropped a week’s provision of food to the crew.
As the ship’s owners ashore continued negotiations to arrange tug assistance, the USCG Cutter ‘Confidence’ arrived on scene on October 8, as Tropical Storm Leslie was bearing down, and a decision was made for the crew of MV Alta to abandon the ship, with marine fuel, gas and oil onboard. The crew were brought ashore and repatriated.
Almost a year later, on September 3, 2019, Britain’s Royal Navy ‘HMS Protector’ sighted the ship derelict in the middle of the Atlantic.
It continued drifting eastward and finally came ashore in Ballyandreen Bay on February 16, 2020.
The MCIB was able to establish that the ship’s owner at that time it was abandoned, Alta Shipping LLC of Miami, failed to renew the flag certification which expired on September 25, 2018, about two days before the voyage should have concluded. The ship was therefore not registered for the entire voyage to the time it was abandoned.
As environmental concerns mounted here, contractors working on behalf of Cork County Council boarded the vessel a few days after its grounding and found the main fuel tanks empty and open to the sea.
The MCIB said it is highly likely that any fuel was lost and was dispersed by the storm when the vessel grounded.
The contractors collected oils and other fluids from the ship and placed them in empty barrels which were then airlifted by helicopter off the vessel on February 26.
The shipwreck soon became an attraction for sightseers and thrill-seekers, some of whom boarded the vessel and posted pictures and videos on social media.
Despite lockdown, and warnings from the authorities, people continued to climb aboard and local fire crews had to extinguish a blaze aboard the ship, and concerns mounted about the health and safety risks posed by the structure.
However, efforts to deal with the wreck have been complicated by the failure to identify its legal owner, and by the fact that no one single body here seems to want to take charge of the matter.
According to the MCIB, the MV Alta changed registry and ownership several times, was deleted from the Classification Society Register and was finally deleted from the register of Tanzania in 2018, after it was abandoned.
“Thus, the ship was abandoned and set adrift as a stateless ship and its ownership is unknown at this juncture,” it said.
However, the MCIB did point out that the 2007 Nairobi International Convention on the removal of wrecks “provides a sound legal basis” for coastal states to remove, or have removed, from their coastlines wrecks which pose a hazard to the safety of navigation, or wrecks which pose a threat to the marine and coastal environments, or both.
“The Convention makes shipowners financially liable and requires them to take out insurance or provide other financial security to cover the costs of wreck removal. It also provides states with a right of direct action against insurers,” the MCIB said..
“Ownership of ‘MV Alta’ is unknown and the vessel insurers (if any) are not known. The risk of litigation regarding vessel ownership is therefore considered low. The State is empowered through the 2007 Nairobi Convention to remove the wreck of ‘MV Alta’.”
But Mr Kingston says this point is rendered completely invalid because the State has failed to ratify this convention.
The MCIB did however warn of the wreck’s visual impact on the coast and added: “While the wreck remains an identifiable ship and an object of curiosity, as time passes the wreck, if not removed, will inevitably deteriorate to an unsightly collection of rusting plates and plastic wreckage.
The MCIB said the likelihood of pollution as the wreck breaks up is high and will remain so until the wreck is removed, and it warned that the costs of removal will likely be borne by the State.
It recommended that the Minister for Transport should, together with the Ministers for Defence and Agriculture, Food and the Marine, form a working group comprising members from the Irish Coast Guard, the Naval Service, Irish Lights, the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and other interested parties to explore the risks and potential costs to the State presented by derelict ships entering Irish territorial waters and coming ashore in Ireland and make proposals for means to identify, monitor, track and interdict derelict ships before they endanger other ships and seafarers.
Mr Kingston said he agrees to some extent with this point but said such a coordinated response should have been put in place following the Kowloon Bridge disaster 35 years ago.
Sinn Féin TD for Cork East, Pat Buckley, sought an update in the Dáil about what is being done about the wreck and was told that, as had been recommended by the MCIB, a working group had been established by the Department of Transport.
The asked the MCIB if it was satisfied that its recommendation in the MV Alta report had been followed through.
In a statement, it said the main purpose of MCIB investigations is to establish the cause or causes of a marine casualty and to make recommendations for the avoidance of similar marine casualties.
“It is not the purpose of an investigation to attribute blame or fault,” it said.
“Recommendations made by the MCIB are addressed to appropriate authorities for example the Minister for Transport, other ministers or agencies and the commercial and recreational maritime community.
“It is then a matter for those entities to decide if those recommendations are actioned. The MCIB has no further involvement in this matter.
“The published report (into the MV Alta incident) contains all of the information relevant to the investigation and the board has no further comment to make.” The Department of Agriculture’s Marine section said the Department of Transport is the lead department on this issue.
“They are the department that convenes the working group, chairs it, and has the primary responsibility for it. So you would be best to direct the query to them,” a spokesman said.
The Department of Defence confirmed that a group has been established as recommended by the MCIB, and that it is being chaired by the Irish Coast Guard.
“The Department of Defence is represented on this group. All other remaining questions should be directed to the Department of Transport and to Cork County Council,” a spokesperson said.
The then asked the Department of Transport and Cork County Council about the working group and the future of the wreck.
In a statement, the Department of Transport confirmed that it has established a working group, chaired by the Irish Coast Guard, to explore the risks and potential costs to the State presented by derelict ships entering Irish territorial waters and coming ashore in Ireland.
“The group will make proposals on how to identify, monitor, track and interdict derelict ships before they endanger other ships and seafarers in the vicinity. Work is ongoing in this regard. Queries regarding the status of the wreck should be referred to Cork County Council,” it said.
We asked for details of the working group meetings. A response is awaited.
We also asked the department if it had plans to either arrange for the removal of the wreck, or to provide funding to Cork County Council, to remove it, if the removal has been costed, and if the department could provide a timeline for when the wreck will be removed.
None of those questions were answered.
When the asked Cork County Council for an update on the shipwreck, it said it has discharged all of its obligations under the relevant legislation in relation to the ship.
“In December 2020 and January 2021, Cork County Council recruited international specialist consultants to carry out an assessment to prepare an 'Inventory of Hazardous Materials' in the fabric of the vessel,” it said in a statement.
“A subsequent environmental assessment of this inventory, currently in draft, concluded that the wreck was highly unlikely to lead to significant long-term negative impacts on marine ecology or marine environmental quality.
“This concludes Cork County Council’s obligations under the relevant legislation. Cork County Council has shared this information with the Department of Transport to inform consideration of whether further intervention is required.”
We asked the council to release the inventory of hazardous materials report and the subsequent environmental report.
The council released the inventory, prepared by the international consultants, MA Solutions BV, Netherlands, and said it cost €16,037.54, ex Vat.
It shows the wreck contains, among other hazardous materials, a lot of asbestos in the insulation fabric, brake linings, in various gaskets, cylinder hatches and level switches, and in bulkhead panels and in the propeller shaft gasket.
But it said the environmental report based on that inventory report is still in draft form and cannot be released yet.
“The report of assessment of risks to the aquatic environment was carried out by MERC Consultants, Galway,” a council spokesman said.
“This report is under consideration by council and in draft, therefore we are not in a position to share it.
“The preliminary conclusion of the MERC report is that it is highly unlikely that the level of hazardous materials on the wreck would lead to significant negative impacts on the marine ecology or water quality.” And so, as the second anniversary of the grounding approaches, the wreck remains stuck fast on the coastline — for now — and the various agencies appear to be passing the buck over who is now responsible for dealing with it.
Mr Buckley said he is aware of a plant hire expert who is ready to remove it at no cost to the state. He said he has made that offer known to various authorities but the offer has been effectively ignored.
“This man has the expertise and he has the permission of the local owner as well to get access to the site. And they all ignored the offer. I think at this stage, they are just hoping it will rot and just fall into the sea,” he said.
Mr Kingston, who worked with Britain's Secretary of State’s representative for Marine Salvage and Intervention (SOSREP) on a Lloyd’s of London 2013 report entitled ‘The Challenges and Implications of Removing Shipwrecks in the 21st Century’, says it’s clear from the MV Alta situation here that not only does Ireland not have a proper response system in place to prevent such situations — turning from a possible salvage and refloating to an inevitable wreck — the overall approach to maritime regulation and safety of our mariners and search and rescue personnel is “appalling”.
That report highlighted why the UK moved from a ‘committee system’ like we have here to the SOSRep system.
“It was introduced following a public enquiry by Lord Donaldson in 1999 following the sinking of the tanker MV Sea Empress off Milford Haven in 1996,” Mr Kingston says.
“It was clear the committee system, involving all sorts of agencies, including the local authority, failed.
“That is precisely the system we need in Ireland, and we should have followed the UK in 1999, and indeed carried out our own investigation a lot earlier following the failure of the MV Kowloon Bridge.
“Also, the MV Betelgeuse was a stricken tanker that had been refused entry in Portugal, so it should also have been analysed then. She may have ended up on our coast as opposed to at the Whiddy Oil Terminal.
“But of course, we did nothing.
“I do not blame Cork County Council for a moment. The fault lies squarely at the door of the Transport department.
“It is not practical to expect county councils to have the experience and capability in maritime issues, and of course the urgent contacts, or the exclusive decision-making power of a SOSRep, to deal with these situations.
“It would make sense to have an Irish SOSRep, and a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK SOSRep, drawing on their contacts and expertise.
"It is not rocket science.
“It is essential in understanding the current failures in relation to the MV ALTA, to ensure it does not happen again.” “The next time in Ballycotton it will be a huge oil tanker, or a 23,000 TEU cargo vessel.
“Unless the local population causes enough uproar, the wreck will be left there by the government, who would now have to pay an expensive bill for its removal, much more expensive than otherwise would have been the case.
“In a sense they were ‘covered’ from such an uproar by the onset of the Covid emergency. The people of Ballycotton and Cork deserve better.
“Our country’s environment and lives are at stake, and there will be hell to pay if we have a massive incident on our coastline, which we inevitably will.”
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