One Dead, One Injured in English Channel Storm

Published Jan 4, 2016 5:29 PM by The Maritime Executive

One man has died and another was seriously injured as a result of storms in the North Sea and English Channel.

The 211m (690-foot) container ship Cape Mayor was hit by stormy weather 40 nautical miles off Ouessant Island during a voyage from Rotterdam to Tanger, Morocco, on New Year’s Day.

One of the men was swept overboard during the storm and the other injured on deck. The injured man was airlifted to shore in France.

Two helicopters from Lanveoc naval base in France conducted a search and rescue operation for the missing man who later died of hypothermia en route to hospital.

An investigation is underway to determine why the men were on the main deck during the storm. The vessel is owned and managed by Columbia Shipmanagement Deutschland.

In a separate incident, the general cargo ship Koningsborg was damaged during the storm en route from Finland to Tunisia. The vessel lost propulsion and was adrift 18 nautical miles off Ouessant Island. The disabled vessel lost some of its cargo of timber and suffered hull damage.

The tug Abeille Bourbon towed the vessel to Brest. No injuries were reported. The vessel is managed by Smith Rederij of Holland.

The 2015-16 season was the first time the U.K.'s Met Office and Ireland's Met Éireann have named extratropical cyclones. The season started on 10 November with the naming of Storm Abigail and is ongoing. Storms are named when they are forecast to cause hazards due to high winds by either organization.

The season is most notable for the high rainfall which fell over the U.K. and Ireland causing devastating floods. Most of the rainfall was the result of storms Desmond, Eva and Frank. Frank was the sixth storm to be officially named by the Met Office on December 28, 2015.

Accidents were reported around the North Sea as Storm Frank's high winds and waves caused a number of incidents. See MarEx coverage here and here.