The MSC NAPOLI - ten years on

Ten years ago today, the MSC Napoli, a 275 metre (900ft) long container ship was on passage in the English Channel when she got caught in stormy weather and suffered catastrophic hull damage. 
MSC NAPOLI

Hugh Shaw, the Secretary of States Representative (SOSREP) said:  ‘The scale of the response and resources required to the salvage the NAPOLI was immense. Fortunately, shipping incidents as time and resource heavy as the NAPOLI are rare within the UK’s jurisdiction.

‘Like with all shipping incidents that occur in our waters, we make every effort to protect the environment, and the NAPOLI was no different.  The strategy was unusual in that we deliberately grounded the vessel in Lyme Bay to mitigate against a potentially far more serious situation. Failure to take this action would have led to the significant risk of the vessel sinking in the open seas of the English Channel, which could have led to long term environmental consequences as well as navigation safety issues. It is also important to remember that there was no loss of seafarers’ lives during the incident.  Once the NAPOLI was in the shallow, sheltered waters of Lyme Bay, the salvage operation was infinitely more manageable.

‘From beginning to end the salvage of the NAPOLI took 924 days, and although lengthy, its conclusion set a benchmark in how we mitigate threats to the environment and the public when we conduct training exercises based on the potential of future incidents arising of this nature and scale.  It was also a good example of multi-agency and international organisations liaising together.  Thankfully, no UK shipping incident has come remotely close to this timescale in the 10 years since NAPOLI.’ 

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