Clean up
The Fremantle Highway, the largely burnt-out freighter that floated above Ameland for days, has arrived in Eemshaven. Now the salvage is entering the next phase and more and more is becoming known about the cars on board.
They should have gone to Port Said in Egypt or to Singapore, but now the cars aboard the Fremantle Highway are likely to be unloaded at Eemshaven. At least, the owner of the ship, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, wants the undamaged part of the cargo removed. This is reported by the CEO of berger Boskalis AP. The undamaged part? Of course. It seems miraculously that some of the cars on board have been spared. It would be about 800 cars. “We did an inspection from deck five, the ramp deck. It showed that decks one to four are reasonably undamaged. But as you come up it gets worse. Deck eight is very badly damaged and partly collapsed. That shows how fierce the fire has been,” says Peter Berdowski.
There are 3,784 cars aboard the Fremantle Highway, 500 of which are fully electric. The latter made it difficult to get the situation under control. Berdowski: “It is a kind of floating parking garage, everything is close together. You cannot extinguish an electric car, only immerse it in water or let the fire burn out.” It is now also becoming increasingly clear which manufacturers the cars come from. There are models on board from Mercedes-Benz, the Volkswagen Group and according Automobilweek a four-digit number of BMW Group cars. Not only BMWs are included, but also Minis and even a Rolls-Royce.
Fremantle Highway cargo damage could potentially amount to around €300 million, an expert estimates Autonews. If the undamaged cars are disembarked, a more precise estimate may be possible. The owner wants the freighter to be prepared for further transport after unloading those cars. Then the ship can be further emptied and demolished at another location, or possibly repaired. It is not yet clear how long the work in Eemshaven will take. The Marine Fire Brigade is in any case ready to fight any flaring fire.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl