Category Archives: Water transport

France-Italy migration row escalates after rescue ship docks in Toulon

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French government calls Italy ‘inhumane’ for refusing vessel but Italian PM hits back as rift deepens

France and Italy have intensified their bitter row over migration after a charity-operated ship carrying hundreds of asylum seekers rescued in the central Mediterranean docked in the French port of Toulon after almost three weeks during which Italy’s far-right government failed to give it safe port.

The French government called Italy “irresponsible” and “inhumane” for not coming to the aid of the ship, which had been stuck in Italian waters for weeks carrying sick passengers who had been rescued at sea between Libya and Italy.

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Many dead in two separate boat disasters off Greek coast

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At least 22 people dead, with many more missing, in two separate incidents hundreds of miles apart

Search and rescue operations are under way in the west and east of Greece after refugees desperate to reach Europe were involved in two separate maritime disasters in less than a day, the country’s coastguard said.

Almost 12 hours after two vessels sank in the Aegean sea, rescue workers hampered by inclement weather were in a race against the clock on Thursday to find survivors as authorities reported that at least 16 women and a boy had died when an overloaded boat capsized east of the island of Lesbos.

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World’s richest celebrate end of summer at €4bn Monaco yacht show

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Number of billionaires interested in superyachts said to have grown despite Russia sanctions and global economic crisis

“Change the TV channels now,” the captain of a $95m (£85m) Albatross superyacht calls out to a deckhand. “That guy has probably lost two mil in the last two minutes and we’re trying to convince him to drop 95.”

“That guy” is a prospective buyer of the 72-metre long vessel floating in Monaco’s Port Hercules where the world’s richest people (and their entourages) have gathered this week for the annual yacht show. With more than €4bn (£3.5bn) worth of marine luxury on display, it is as brokerage firm Burgess puts it: “The chicest way for billionaires to celebrate the end of summer”.

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EU biometric entry system could multiply delays at Dover

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Additional requirements would be time-consuming and threaten capacity, Dover port boss says

Post-Brexit Channel border delays could multiply from next May, with a five-person vehicle being held for up to 10 minutes if the EU goes ahead with a planned biometric entry system, the Port of Dover has said.

The entry-exit system (EES), which is due to start in May 2023, will require all non-EU nationals to register their fingerprints and be photographed before entering the bloc.

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Low water levels mean Rhine is days from being shut for cargo

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Businesses along the river say drought means they are on the verge of having to shut production

Germany’s Rhine, one of Europe’s key waterways, is just days away from being closed to commercial traffic because of very low levels caused by drought, authorities and industry have warned.

Crucially, the impending crisis could lead energy companies to cut their output, one of the country’s biggest gas companies has said.

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Warning Dover port chaos could spill into weekend as queues last six hours

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Kent port apologises for delays and blames French border control as summer getaway kicks off

Holidaymakers have been warned chaos that triggered six-hour queues at Dover could spill into the weekend, after the port declared a “critical incident” that it blamed on “woefully inadequate” French border control staffing.

The Kent port apologised to travellers facing long waits to cross the Channel on an extremely busy day for travel across the UK, as schools across England and Wales break up for the holidays.

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Dozens feared dead as ship sinks in South China Sea

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At least three people rescued from ship that broke in two during typhoon but more than two dozen still missing

More than two dozen crew members are unaccounted for after their ship broke in two during a typhoon in the South China Sea on Saturday, with rescuers scrambling to find them, officials have said.

Authorities dispatched planes and helicopters to help with the rescue. At least three people from the crew of 30 had been brought to safety as of 5.30pm local time (1030 GMT).

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UK airports, ports and roads under pressure as half-term getaway begins

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EasyJet cancelled 14 flights, while ferry passengers at Dover face queues, and jams await drivers

Half-term holidaymakers are navigating the busiest day at British airports since the start of the pandemic with some hit by further flight cancellations, while cross-Channel ferry passengers face long queues at Dover and drivers are warned to expect jams.

EasyJet cancelled 14 more flights at London Gatwick in the early morning peak, in the aftermath of IT problems on Thursday that took out 200 of its flights around Europe.

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Ex-P&O Ferries chef sues for unfair dismissal and racial discrimination

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John Lansdown seeking up to £76m, which he will use to set up trust to help fellow seafarers

A former P&O Ferries chef is suing the company for £76m over its decision to sack almost 800 staff without notice last month.

John Lansdown, the only seafarer to launch a legal action, has filed a tribunal claim against the company and its chief executive for unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and harassment.

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P&O Ferries scandal must be turning point for workers’ rights, says TUC

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Union leaders call for employment bill and accuse ministers of failing to challenge sacking of 800 staff

Ministers have serious questions to answer on the growing scandal at P&O Ferries and must make it a catalyst to improve workers’ rights, the Trades Union Congress said on Sunday.

The TUC accused the government of sitting on its hands and failing to protect workers after P&O sacked 800 staff on Thursday with a plan to replace them with cheaper agency workers. It has emerged that ministers were informed in advance about the mass redundancies.

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Government knew of P&O Ferries sackings the day before, No 10 admits

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Labour and unions demand immediate action including suspending licences of parent company DP World

Unions and the Labour party have demanded immediate action over the sacking of 800 British crew by P&O Ferries, including suspending the licences of its parent company, DP World, as it emerged the government was made aware of the move the previous night.

Amid public calls for a boycott of P&O and protests at ports, unions demanded the government urge the firm to reverse its decision, and curb DP World’s involvement in planned freeports.

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‘Scandalous betrayal’: MPs condemn P&O Ferries for mass sacking of 800 staff

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Ministers and unions call for action against transport company’s Dubai owners

Ministers and trade unions have condemned P&O Ferries’ mass sacking of 800 British seafarers to replace them with agency crew as shameful and “completely unacceptable”, amid furious calls for action against the company’s Dubai owners.

P&O Ferries’ services could be suspended for up to 10 days, disrupting its cross-Channel and Irish Sea routes, after an extraordinary day in which the operator sacked its entire British seafaring staff without notice. They learned the news of their redundancy via a pre-recorded video message this morning.

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Ever stuck: Suez container ship’s cousin runs aground in US harbor

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The 334-metre Ever Forward ran into trouble in the Chesapeake Bay, a year to the month after its cousin blocked the canal in Egypt

A year to the month after the Ever Given blocked the Suez canal for a week – prompting global fascination and countless memes – the container ship’s cousin has run aground in the Chesapeake Bay.

Officials are now scrambling to refloat that container ship, ironically named the Ever Forward, after it got stuck on Sunday night as it tried to head from the Port of Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, Bloomberg reported.

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Germany seizes Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s $600m superyacht – report

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Hamburg authorities seized the 156-metre Dilbar as yachts belonging to five other Russian billionaires headed to the non-extradition Maldives

Russia-Ukraine crisis: live news

German authorities have reportedly seized the $600m superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov in a Hamburg shipyard.

Usmanov was on a list of billionaires to face sanctions from the European Union in response to Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine. It came as the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said it had seized a yacht linked to Rosneft boss Igor Sechin in the Mediterranean port of La Ciotat.

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Ten missing and 17 detained by US after boat capsizes in Puerto Rico

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Incident is latest calamity as migrants from Dominican Republic and Haiti increasingly try to cross treacherous smuggling route

Federal authorities detained 17 Dominican migrants on Friday after their boat capsized near Puerto Rico’s north-west coast in the pre-dawn hours, with the US Coast Guard searching for an estimated 10 others still missing.

Jeffrey Quiñones, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman, told the Associated Press that those detained told officials that a total of 27 people were onboard the boat that struck a rock and turned over near Shacks Beach in Isabela.

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After rightwing attacks on rescues, UK lifeboat charity has record fundraising year

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The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has had ‘significant’ increase in annual donations after it went to the aid of asylum seekers

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is on course for the highest annual fundraising total in its near 200-year history. Donations swelled after the charity attracted huge public support following rightwing attacks for helping save the lives of asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Channel.

The RNLI said it has received a significant increase in support, with online donations rising by 50% this year.

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Man rescued 22 hours after capsizing off Japan coast – video

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Dramatic footage released by the Japan coastguard shows the rescue of a 69-year-old man in rough seas after spending 22 hours drifting in open water.

The man, whose name has not been released, was alone on a boat off Kagoshima prefecture in the south-west of the country on Saturday afternoon when it capsized.

He managed to call a colleague on the island to alert him, but was not found until nearly a day later, the coastguard said, when rescuers spotted him sitting on the engine of his capsized boat, clasping a propeller part

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Nurdles: the worst toxic waste you’ve probably never heard of

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Billions of these tiny plastic pellets are floating in the ocean, causing as much damage as oil spills, yet they are still not classified as hazardous

When the X-Press Pearl container ship caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean in May, Sri Lanka was terrified that the vessel’s 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil would spill into the ocean, causing an environmental disaster for the country’s pristine coral reefs and fishing industry.

Classified by the UN as Sri Lanka’s “worst maritime disaster”, the biggest impact was not caused by the heavy fuel oil. Nor was it the hazardous chemicals on board, which included nitric acid, caustic soda and methanol. The most “significant” harm, according to the UN, came from the spillage of 87 containers full of lentil-sized plastic pellets: nurdles.

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A catamaran and a plan: desperate to get home, New Zealanders set sail across the Tasman

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With government-controlled quarantine spots in very short supply and long waiting lists for flights home, some stranded citizens are taking to the seas

New Zealanders stranded in Australia are sailing across the Tasman Sea aboard small boats with seasick strangers in a desperate bid to get home, saying the notoriously perilous trip is easier to navigate than the country’s fraught border system.

The country’s borders have been strictly controlled since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic – only citizens, permanent residents and a handful of essential workers can enter, and all of them must make a booking to spend two weeks in government-controlled quarantine (MIQ).

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Canada container ship fire: ‘bomb cyclone’ storm may hinder effort to assess damage

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Blaze on freighter ship has been largely contained, but officials won’t be able to determine damage amid wind and rain

Emergency crews have largely contained a chemical fire aboard a container ship anchored off western Canada, but warned a looming “bomb cyclone” storm could complicate efforts to fully assess damage to the ship and surrounding marine ecosystem.

The blaze broke out on Saturday aboard the MV Zim Kingston, a freighter ship carrying mining chemicals, including potassium amylxanthate – a hazardous substance used to help separate ores.

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