Ship moved from Red Sea reef

The 260m-long CSCL Hamburg ran on to Woodhouse Reef, between the Sinai coast and Tiran Island, on New Year’s Eve. There were no injuries, no leakages and no lost deck containers.

Assessors for the Hong Kong-flagged vessel decided that the ship, which remained stuck fast at the bow,  was salvageable.

It was lightened forward by the repositioning of some of its cargo, hauled off by tugs and taken to Eilat in Israel for repair. 

Damage to Woodhouse Reef consists of a swathe of destroyed coral some 25m long and, reflecting the ship's beam, 30m wide.

Pieces that tumbled down the steep edge of the reef have destroyed other corals to a depth of about 45m.

The Ras Mohammed Park authority may fine the vessel's owners for the damage caused, but there is relief that the impact was relatively limited.

"A few metres either way and it could have taken out dive boats and killed divers, not to mention causing massive environmental damage all around," John Kean, a Sharm El Sheikh-based PADI and TDI diving instructor and author of ss Thistlegorm, told Divernet.

"Although that patch of reef may never be the same, we should count ourselves lucky that it was not a huge disaster.

"Very few people dived that particular side of Woodhouse Reef anyway, as it was normally exposed to wind and weather, making it less than ideal for daily boats."

In the short term, more people than before are visiting the site, out of curiosity. But according to Kean, the "finer points of Woodhouse remain untouched and unaffected by the ship's collision".

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