‘Will take weeks’
The Fremantle Highway, the largely burnt-out freighter full of new cars moored in Eemshaven, has been declared safe. This means that the salvage of cars and the investigation into the circumstances can begin.
Salvage companies will start this week with the inspection of the Fremantle Highway, which has been in Eemshaven since Thursday afternoon. The cargo ship that ran into problems was made accessible last weekend for, among others, the salvors of maritime service provider Boskalis, subsidiary SMIT Salvage and salvage partner Multraship. Leendert Muller, managing director of Multraship, hopes that the recovery companies can start work later on Monday or Tuesday.
This weekend, lighting was installed in the ship, where fire broke out in the night of Tuesday 25 to Wednesday 26 July. Furthermore, the extinguishing water has been drained and everything has been cleaned, says Muller. “It must be safe for people to enter the ship. So we have taken preparatory measures.” Multraship CEO Muller says that all kinds of research will now take place, by various parties. “Bergers want to know how they can return the ship properly and safely to the owner and whether this should be done with or without cargo. But they also look at the cause of the fire, for example. It is a broad spectrum.” For that reason, Muller expects the inspections and the investigation to take ‘a very long time’. “Expect weeks before anything is clear.”
It was previously suggested that the fire was caused by an electric car on board the ship, but that is still not certain. Research must provide a definite answer on this, insofar as it can still be found. There are 3,784 cars on board the Fremantle Highway, nearly 500 of which are fully electric. Boskalis CEO Peter Berdowski previously stated that extinguishing the Fremantle Highway was extra complicated because of the electric cars on board.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl