Fremantle Highway Catches Fire and Is Abandoned in the North Sea | At Least 1 Dead

July 26, 2023
What's Going on With Shipping?
In this episode, Sal Mercogliano - maritime historian at Campbell University (@campbelledu) and former merchant mariner - discusses the fire on board the car carrier Fremantle Highway in the North Sea after the ship departed Bremerhaven for Asia, via the Suez Canal on July 25, 2023.

 

Same story...different day.

Profits over safety.

 

The video title is a little misleading. That ship wasn't abandoned, it was moved out of the main shipping lines after the crew correctly evacuated because of the fire until it was safe to start towing to a unloading port.

https://gcaptain.com/boskalis-ceo-says-fremantle-highway-fire-started-in-upper-vehicle-decks/

Berdowski expects it will take a “couple of weeks” to unload a large part of the cargo at the Eemshaven port. After that, the vessel will likely be moved to either a yard for repair or to be decommissioned, he said.

Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the Japanese firm that owns the vessel, said the final destination for the carrier was Singapore. The company also owned the Ever Given, the huge container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal in March 2021. A unit of Boskalis had helped refloat the massive container ship.

There are CO2 fire-suppression systems on the transports that crews can use to fight conventional air breathing fuel fires but that's not very effective when the fire-source can generation it's own oxidizer and is highly concentrated.

There's always the balance of, fighting the fire or killing the ship fighting the fire. The choice to fight the fire to the bitter end was easier for US Navy sailors because there were explosive weapons onboard not burning cars.