Iconic Greek island shipwreck at risk of disappearing
Like most other people, I hanker after a bit of nostalgia and this story took me back in time to a memorable holiday in the Greek islands. I was fortunate enough to visit the island of Zakynthos about 30 years ago. We took a boat trip out to Navagio Beach to view the iconic, badly rusted wreck of MV Panagiotis. My overwhelming memory was jumping from the side of the boat into the clear blue Ionian waters to swim the 50 metres to the shore fighting against a strong tide – and all to see a rusted, decaying hulk! The MV Panagiotis, which ran aground in October 1980, is now partially buried in the sand and severely damaged.
Anyway, I now hear that the remains of the ship are at risk of disappearing due to extensive damage caused by waves and weather, according to local authorities. Zakynthos Mayor Giorgos Stasinopoulos emphasised the municipality’s responsibility to manage and protect this important site and experts in Greece are urging immediate action to protect both the shipwreck and the beach. The beach, which was recently awarded the best in the world, has been closed to tourists for two summers in a row due to landslide concerns.
Professor Efthymios Lekkas warned that if the ship disappears, the beach might return to its pre-shipwreck state, losing its unique appeal. He emphasised the need to preserve the ship, citing its role in the Normandy invasions.
Baltimore officials made a bad bet – you bet they did!
I was rather struck by a recent article I read written by Joel Milton, an American who works on tow boats.
As he explained, on 9 May 1980, the freighter Summit Venture, with a harbour pilot onboard guiding it, was entering Tampa Bay approaching the Sunshine Skyway Bridge when the total reliance on luck proved, once again, to be a bad bet.
He writes that the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge and the Francis Scott Key Bridge were in similarly vulnerable locations, spanning shipping channels at the mouths of busy harbours with only a single entrance, and of similar construction: steel truss bridges supported by piers. The support piers of both bridges immediately adjacent to the ship channels were not protected in any meaningful way given the size of the vessels using the channel, nor were any other significant measures taken to help offset that known vulnerability. But this was not a design flaw per se. It was a choice.
Unlike the containership Dali in Baltimore, the Summit Venture suffered no loss of steering or propulsion. Heavy thunderstorms with squalls moved through as the ship arrived at the bridge. The resulting loss of visibility and strong winds proved disastrous, and the ship struck a support pier, collapsing the southbound span and killing 35 people.
The primary reason for failing to adequately protect critical infrastructure from even easily foreseeable events like a ship-strike comes down to money and human nature, articulates Joel Milton. The Tampa Bay area made a bad bet and let it ride for 26 years until luck ran out. Baltimore made a bad bet and let it ride for 47 years despite receiving a loud-and-clear warning of what can happen less than three years after the Key Bridge opened. That warning went unheeded.
I have no further comment to make about this story other than it is both thought-provoking and frightening on several levels. I wonder what precautions and considerations will be made for future bridge constructions, to say nothing of beefing up the protection of existing vulnerable structures – and will any of these previous learnings be taken into account, or do the authorities just trust to luck, keep their fingers crossed and make more bad bets?
Delft students cross North Sea in self-built hydrogen boat
Perhaps you are reading this story and are young, or perhaps, like me, you are reading this and wish you were young! The reality is, in my humble opinion, that the technological opportunities being presented to the youth of today are exceptional, unrivalled throughout history and almost endless.
Here’s a perfect example and I salute the students from Delft in the Netherlands for their success. They arrived in Ramsgate, UK with their self-built hydrogen boat, becoming the first to cross from the Netherlands to England with a fully hydrogen-powered vessel, making the nearly 169-km journey on a single tank. And from what I read it was not all plain sailing. The team’s first attempt to make the crossing failed due to technical problems that occurred the day before and the risk of thunderstorms. But the students tried again, and it seemed this attempt may have been unsuccessful as well when, at the outset, a cooling pump broke down. But with a quick pitstop in the harbour of Zeebrugge, the pump was successfully replaced, and the boat was once again seaworthy.
Crossing the North Sea brought many additional challenges for the students, including safety, logistics, and jurisdiction. An internal team was formed to work full-time on the organisation of the crossing alongside the testing phase. To ensure safety, protocols were drawn up, extra training sessions and preparations were taken on, and necessary safety products were purchased. Logistical planning was also a significant challenge this year, especially since the exact date of the crossing depended on the weather.
Swedish lifeboat rowed home to Limehouse after 155 years
In times of turbulence and uncertainty in our world, stories like this create something of a feel-good factor.
A 19th-century lifeboat given to the King of Sweden by Queen Victoria’s wine merchant has made a homecoming voyage, rowed across the Thames to the yard where she was built – Limehouse Basin, London. Lifbåt 416, a self-righting lifeboat built to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s specification at Forrestt & Son was a gift to King Karl XV from James Gunston Chillingworth in 1868. The pioneering self-righters built by Forrestt were tested by being dropped into the water on Limehouse Cut – London’s oldest canal which opened in 1770.
After an illustrious career saving 80 lives on the treacherous waters around Skanör, southern Sweden, Lifbåt 416 answered her last call-out in 1939. She spent more than 45 years on display outside Falsterbo museum before her restoration to seaworthiness in 1992.
In recognition of the boat’s origins, and to mark the bicentenary of the RNLI, the Skanör-Falsterbo Lifbåtsroddarelag club arranged for Lifbåt 416 to return to the UK by freight to participate in an anniversary event at the RNLI headquarters in Poole, Dorset.
She then returned home under oar power to Limehouse for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque.
Efforts underway to clean Baltic Sea of hazardous remnants from shipwrecks
We so often hear negative comments aimed at the shipping and boating world in general, so it is good to be able to redress the balance for once. This story talks about an impressive, if ambitious project, to reduce pollution in old shipwrecks littering the Baltic Sea, of which there are estimated to be 20,000.
The article informed me that institutions and private companies from Poland, Lithuania, Germany and Sweden are collaborating on a project aimed at reducing pollution from dangerous fuels, ammunition and other remnants found in shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea. The initiative, known as “Baltwreck,” is spearheaded by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, southern Poland.
Of the aforementioned 20,000 known wrecks of both military and civilian ships, it is believed that 10 per cent are sources of pollution due to leaking fuels or remains of submerged ammunition. Over 80 years after World War II, hazardous substances such as carcinogenic pyrolytic oil are still seeping from some of these corroded structures.
Michał Silarski from the Jagiellonian University’s Department of Experimental Physics of Particles and its Applications is leading efforts to test new methods for detecting hazardous materials in the sea. He has developed a highly-rated project called ‘Non-invasive sensor for detecting hazardous materials in the aquatic environment’. The sensor operates on the principle of neutron activation of substances and the measurement of characteristic gamma quanta spectra emitted after irradiation with a neutron beam. This method allows for remote chemical composition analysis of a suspicious object without endangering human life or health.
Baltwreck launched on 1 July and will continue for three years. It has a total budget of EUR 3.83 million, with EUR 3.06 million funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg South Baltic Programme.
Let’s be thankful to Michał and watch with interest to see what he and his team can achieve.
New ‘must have’ LEGO set featuring the Orca from Jaws is coming
And finally, I just had to share this story with you! I was brought up as a child when LEGO was a relatively new and rather basic toy with simple building blocks, although still great fun to play with and a childhood favourite. Now just look what’s happened over the years. It has come a long way.
LEGO has recently announced the launch of a Jaws-themed playset that includes the fishing boat Orca, plus the main cast from the iconic 1975 film – oh, and not forgetting that pesky shark too!
The new set comprises 1,497 pieces and along with the Orca and shark come Chief Brody, Captain Quint, and Matt Hooper with assorted other items such as fishing equipment, the shark cage, and even Chief Brody’s revolver.
Christmas is on the horizon, so if you celebrate it, best to get it on your gift list soon I’d say.
I’ll have more for you next month.
Mike Schwarz
