One year ago, hundreds of people descended on Branscombe beach, east Devon, to
help themselves to goods washed ashore from the stricken MSC Napoli.
Gearboxes, trainers, dog food and BMW motorcycles were removed from
containers, some jemmied open on the beach, while bonfires fuelled by Bibles
bound for South Africa lit up the sky.
“It was a scene out of Mad Max,” says Mark Clark, of the Maritime and
Coastguard Agency (MCA). “One young woman put her baby down on the beach in
the freezing cold and climbed into a container on the shoreline rocked by
the sea.” Anita Bokdal, who had sent a container of her family’s heirlooms
and objects of sentimental value from Sweden to her second home in South
Africa, said the crowds acted “like savages”. “We watched Sky News and saw
our container being broken open. It was like rape. Those terrible people.
I’ve never seen my husband so sad.”
The crowds were exercising a legal salvage right that dates back hundreds of
years. Almost immediately items began to appear on eBay, including “genuine”
shingle from Branscombe beach. Residents also found themselves under siege.
The population of 450 swelled by 5,000 a day. Driveways and fields were
commandeered as car parks, while the village itself became a waste tip
littered with sodden flotsam and jetsam.
“At first it was friendly, with no nastiness. Then a group of men tried to
stop me going to ‘their’ beach,” says Arnold Fenner, 67, warden for 15 years
for the National Trust, which owns the area. “They threatened to smash my
headlights. That doesn’t happen in Branscombe.”
As events unfolded, rumours spread. Tonnes of oil had allegedly bled into the
sea. The contents of a number of containers, known as TEUs – twenty-foot
equivalent units – were reported to be highly hazardous. And the questioning
also began. The Napoli had got into difficulties 50 miles from Cornwall, but
in French waters, so why had she been deliberately grounded in Lyme Bay, a
world heritage site made famous by Thomas Hardy as Dead Man’s Bay in his
fictional Wessex?
The coast is home to endangered species, such as the pink sea fan, a type of
coral. By what possible process of reasoning could it have been selected as
a “place of refuge” for a ship that was splitting in two and carrying over
2,300 containers and almost 4,000 tonnes of oil? Brian Greenslade, the
Liberal Democrat leader of Devon county council, demanded a public inquiry.
“We have a lot of questions to which we want answers,” he said.
Ten months later, in October 2007, Branscombe held a week-long Napoli
exhibition in the village hall, to which over a third of the villagers
contributed their pictures, memories and booty: the star prize in the raffle
was a salvaged (empty) oak wine barrel worth over £100. David Duffield, the
insurers’ representative handling the Napoli, came to explain the next stage
of her removal. A gift of the ship’s anchor – 14 tonnes and worth £10,000 in
scrap metal – was made to the village.
Barbara Farquharson, 68, a retired archeologist and anthropologist, explained:
“It was a tough old time. I hated it and yet here we are celebrating.
In the end, 2007 just became the year of the Napoli. Some people think it’s
the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to the village.” Joan Doern,
67, co-organiser of the exhibition with Farquharson, adds: “The Napoli is
now part of Branscombe’s history. Recording people’s views over the months
seemed like the right thing to do.”
John Hughes, 63, who has fished from Branscombe beach for 42 years, featured
in the exhibition as one of the stars in the drama: “Link man between land,
sea, ship and shore.”
In the non-fishing winter months, he ferried journalists and tourists by boat
to the Napoli, at £5 a head, and he carried a barrel of beer from the local
Branscombe brewery, makers of On the Rocks – a tribute to the Napoli – to
the otherwise dry Dutch salvage crew on April 30 to celebrate Queen
Juliana’s birthday. “Put it this way,” he says. “While she’s been here, I
haven’t lost money.”
Outside the village hall, helped by a £5,000 grant from Devon county council,
tidiness and order have been restored to the village.
Martin Quickfall, 40, from DRS Demolition National, arrived in January from St
Austell in Cornwall to take charge of the clear-up – and has been on
Branscombe beach ever since, seven days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day. The
sea still brings in a lorry-load of debris every week. “What did it look
like when we arrived?” he says. “Armageddon.” In hindsight, he says, he
would have dragged the crates further up the beach and sealed them. “I
underestimated the sea’s power.”
Branscombe beach was reopened in April.
“He is our local hero,” says one villager. At the exhibition residents
presented Quickfall with an iron weather vane made by the local blacksmith
featuring an intact Napoli. “I was gobsmacked,” Quickfall says. “Nobody’s
ever given me anything for work before.” “I think Martin has developed quite
a feeling for the Napoli,” Farquharson says. “She sat out there for weeks
like a wounded animal. I’ve seen him shed a few tears.”
So, a year after Napoli’s arrival, contamination and destruction of the marine
life is not visible; the fish and shellfish appear healthy; the oil loss
from the ship was less than 200 tonnes. But questions remain. Could the
arrival of hordes on the beach have been avoided? Why was Lyme Bay chosen as
the final resting place? And why did the ship split in two? Was it a freak
accident or does it suggest lethal flaws in a method of transport
responsible for shifting 90% of world trade?
Until the Napoli, the biggest source of concern in Branscombe – other than the
rising number of second homes and high cost of housing for the locally born
– was the issue of whether or not to modernise the village hall or
build a costly replacement. Once the Napoli arrived, the village-hall
factions found a common enemy: the outside world.
) ) ) ) )
On Saturday, January 20, the Napoli was beached a mile off Branscombe beach.
Two containers had been lost in French waters; 114 went over the side; one
was found in nearby Seaton; one in Dorset; and 48 came ashore at Branscombe.
“At first it was local people on the beach,” John Hughes says. “But by late
Sunday night the hordes were beginning to arrive. At 2am it was like
Piccadilly Circus. I was getting phone calls from New Zealand and America
asking ‘Whatever’s happened to Branscombe?’ They’d seen us on telly and
thought it was ruined.”
A large section of the village still believe that what the sea yields is the
locals’ gain. “People don’t earn much,” said one resident. “Why shouldn’t
they take a few nappies?” “Containers were broken up,” says another. “But
who’s to say if they hadn’t been, they wouldn’t have been washed out to sea
on the high tide and the contents lost for ever? Salvage is about rescue,
not theft.”
Fifteen BMW bikes were removed from a crate. “We were helping each other,”
said one local man. He and his friends had come for “the experience”. Cars
and vans from Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leicester began to
appear. “What made the difference,” says Mark Clark, “was 24-hour media
coverage. Everyone wanted to be a celebrity, be part of the action.”
John Hughes’s tractor was the only one allowed on the beach for the first
three days, co-opted to help the police and the fire brigade. “One policeman
asked me to take a motorbike to the compound. Two men I knew were arguing
over it. One had the bike, the other had the key to the bike. Then the
policeman disappeared, so the two chaps tossed for it. But the picture of me
with the bike went around the world. It made Branscombe people look bad.”
Edwin Purchase, 70, newly retired, farmed Woodhead Farm – once a smugglers’
spot – a mile and a half out of the village, for 55 years. “My yard was full
of cars. People opened my gates and put cars in my field. It was a kind of
madness.”
Barbara Farquharson says: “I saw a man wheeling an engine in a wheelbarrow
that looked familiar. I checked and, sure enough, three of my wheelbarrows
and a wheelie bin had gone.”
David Crow bought Gays Farm five years ago. “I saw human nature at its worst.
Police action went from the sublime, when they didn’t stop a single soul, to
the ridiculous, when villagers couldn’t get into their homes and the postman
had to make a five-mile detour to deliver a letter.”
The local policeman Steve Speariett had asked his superiors to close off the
beach, and he suggested a way of controlling traffic that didn’t bring life
to a standstill – to no avail.
“He knows how the village works,” Barbara Farquharson points out. “But what
the Napoli illustrated again and again was how the people high up don’t
listen to those on the ground.”
Margaret Rogers, 78, a Liberal Democrat Devon county councillor, says: “I had
a bucket and a spade stolen. I was shocked. The impertinence of people. They
desecrated our village and then had the cheek to wish me good morning.
“What outsiders took wasn’t salvage – it was loot. The chaos only lasted three
days, but it made me aware that the veneer of civilisation is very thin. I’d
never locked my doors before. After the Napoli beached, I padlocked the gate
and put deadlocks on the front door.”
Why weren’t the police better prepared? Why didn’t they cordon off the beach
immediately? And how suited is the law of salvage to modern times?
Under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, all flotsam washed up on the shore has
to be reported to the Receiver of Wreck within 28 days – not to do so is
theft. The salvor can hold the property until the receiver contacts the
owner and a fee is negotiated for the salvor. If the owner has no interest
in retrieval, the receiver decides whether to dispose of the item or allow
the salvor to keep it.
The Receiver of Wreck, Sophia Scott, 35, arrived on the beach at 6am on
Monday, January 22 and spent 13 hours handing out forms and explaining the
rules to the crowds. “People don’t know this legislation and it’s not robust
enough for a large-scale event,” she says. “Ten people salvaging you can
talk to – hundreds is unrealistic. The Napoli didn’t reveal the
inconsistencies in the law, but it did bring them to the fore again.”
The police believed that they were also in a legal limbo, unable to use the
Public Order Act to clear the beach without legal clarification. The
“looters” had committed no offence until they had failed to report their
finds 29 days later.
Inspector Bob Palmer of Devon and Cornwall police says: “We plan for
reasonable and foreseeable events. But a container running aground a mile
off the coast of Devon we do not believe was foreseeable. Nothing on this
scale had occurred in western Europe before. The legislation is very good
for small amounts of wreckage, but not for what unfolded.”
Under common law, the police have a right to cordon off a crime scene, but no
crime had yet occurred. “We had to seek legal clarification to develop a
precedent, drawing on case law concerning public-order incidents and mass
demonstrations,” Palmer explains. “That took time. All big incidents start
off chaotically. The skill is to turn it into organised chaos as soon as
possible. Eventually, we did pull together.”
By Wednesday, January 24, the beach was cordoned off and only contractors had
the right to salvage. Attention once again turned to what exactly had
happened on the Napoli – and why was she in Lyme Bay?
) ) ) ) )
At 10.30am on Thursday, January 18, 2.3 miles inside the French
search-and-rescue zone, the crew of the MSC Napoli reported hearing a
tremendous crack. A Force-11 gale was blowing in one of the worst storms in
the UK in almost two decades. Waves were 40ft high. Crew members say steel
floor plates ripped up, pipes burst and water gushed into the engine room.
Eight nationalities were represented in the 26-man crew, including two
Scottish officer cadets, Forbes Duthie and Nicholas Colbourn, both then 20.
Duthie says: “I was sleeping in my cabin. I heard screaming. It was like the
end of the world.”
The Bulgarian master, Captain Valentin Velev, only in his second month on
board, ordered his men to the lifeboat. “The crew did everything in textbook
fashion,” says Paul Shields, the director of operations of Zodiac Maritime
Agencies, manager of the Napoli. “They shut off all the fuel valves and got
everyone safely into the lifeboat. That in itself was an achievement.”
Two helicopters from the Search and Rescue Squadron at Royal Naval Air Station
Culdrose in Cornwall lifted the crew to safety.
The Napoli’s plight automatically demanded the involvement of Robin Middleton,
the Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and
Intervention (Sosrep), who brings together organisations at sea and on land,
including local authorities, environmental groups, police and salvage
specialists. Sosrep exercises “ultimate command and control” where there is
a significant risk of pollution. The representative has extraordinary powers
– with the ability, if necessary, to shut down the National Grid if he
believes that serves the overriding public interest.
“Robin looks like a cartoon of an old sea dog,” says Andy Borman, the
emergency planning officer for Devon county council, “but he’s a Rolls-Royce
of a man.” Middleton, 60, has had an eclectic career. He began as a
trading-standards officer, went to sea, became a diver, then moved into
salvage and film stunt work before becoming the UK’s first Sosrep based in
Southampton. The news of the Napoli broke as Middleton was a month away from
retirement. “How could this job from hell be flung at me just at that time?”
Sosrep oversees a salvage control unit; a marine response centre (MRC) handles
the clean-up at sea; and a shoreline response centre (SRC) handles pollution
on shore – all supported by an advisory environment group. Sosrep is in
overall charge.
The Napoli had seven self-contained holds. A crack had appeared along the line
of the bulkhead between the engine room and hold six; both were flooded with
water. “We didn’t know if the crack went under the ship, and the sea was too
rough to send down divers,” Middleton says.
Under the terms of the Anglo-French Joint Maritime Contingency Plan, Sosrep
and the French maritime agencies considered their options. “We had a
disaster that had all the makings of a catastrophe,” Middleton says. “And I
knew who would carry the can. Again and again with the Napoli, we had to try
things not tried before. We’d been prepared to handle oil spillage; what we
hadn’t anticipated was the impact of containers. We had to write the book.”
What Middleton needed was a sheltered bay with few rocks and an infrastructure
nearby that was capable of handling an unprecedented number of containers,
many of them likely to be damaged and/or dangerous. The French coast meant
weathering the storm for too long, plus too many rocks and little shelter.
In the early hours of Friday, January 19, Middleton decided the UK would take
the Napoli across Lyme Bay to the port of Portland. “Nobody would look me in
the eye,” Middleton says. “I felt like a leper. The next day I was sworn at
in the street in Weymouth, not once but several times. But I had to act on
the premise that at any moment the Napoli might break in two.”
How could an environmentally world-famous site be considered a place of refuge
for what was potentially a sinking waste heap?
Toby Stone at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency says: “In the UK, a place of
refuge is decided on a case-by-case basis. Lyme Bay has been a sanctuary
from the winds for centuries. In addition to the Napoli, 25 ships sought
shelter from the same storm in Lyme Bay.
“At 7.30am on Saturday,” Middleton recalls, “I was in McDonald’s
when the salvage master called and said, ‘She’s sinking.’” Middleton
immediately ordered the beaching of the Napoli, scrapping the original plan
to take her to Portland. The ship lost up to 50 tonnes of oil.
“Wildlife Carnage in Jurassic Coast Oil Spillage” read one local headline.
“Tide of Death” read another. More than 1,600 oiled birds, mostly
guillemots, were handed in to the RSPCA.
“One of the volunteers cleaning the birds had two words he directed at me
whenever I appeared,” Middleton says. “He was not impressed.”
Morale in Middleton’s salvage control unit, now based at Weymouth, was
low and dipped lower once the fires began to burn on Branscombe beach.
“Everyone had worked around the clock and they were pretty devastated by the
shoreline fiasco,” Middleton says.
Once the Napoli was beached, Middleton’s agenda was first to pump out her oil,
then remove and deal with the containers, and finally to dispense with the
“casualty”, the Napoli itself.
Three factors helped to achieve those aims with the minimum of damage. The
first was the decision of the owners of the Napoli and its third-liability
insurers to meet the cost of salvage and clear-up “from minute one on day
one”.
Ian Ferguson, a director of the insurers The London Club, managed by A
Bilbrough & Co Ltd, says: “We could have sat back and let someone else clean
up the mess, but this way, by managing the containers, cargo, ship and
shoreline clear-up, we controlled the situation and the costs.”
The second factor was the unprecedented co-operation between over a dozen
authorities and organisations on land and sea. On land, operations were led
by Assistant Chief Constable Bob Spencer; at sea, they were headed by Sosrep.
The third factor was luck. After months of storms, the weather calmed. If the
bad weather had returned, contingency plans were in place to deal with up to
800 containers washing ashore.
Andy Borman visited the Napoli soon after she was grounded. “She was awesome, but
the smell could have killed you. The crew’s fridges had been filled at
Antwerp and the stink of rotting food was horrific.”
The insurers hired Smit Salvage, one of the world’s leading salvagers, to deal
with the Napoli. Smit flew Doug Raylord and the exotically named salvage
engineer Flash Budreau in from the United States.
A small tanker was hired at $25,000 a day to remove the pumped-out oil.
Riggers had to be given height training, because at times it was necessary
to abseil down the Napoli’s stacks of containers, listing at 20 degrees. In
addition to the smell and slippery decks, oil had leaked into waterlogged
holds, filled with an assortment of hypodermic syringes, toiletries and car
parts. Divers had to physically shovel the stuff into submerged skips. Holds
were patched and expanding foam used to seal minor cracks.
What Smit faced was an unprecedented task: to remove the remaining 2,199
containers from the ship (one container held a 1928 Rolls-Royce), and decide
what to do with the damaged cargo.
“All the contractors took on the work on a handshake in a Weymouth pub on that
first Sunday night,” David Duffield, in charge of operations on the ground
at Portland, says. “Everything about the Napoli was done on trust.”
Portland, on a bleak piece of coast adjacent to Chesil Beach, was acquired
under Sosrep powers and leased by the insurers. A sports field was dug up
and prepared to handle containers. Another area was set aside to deal with
hazardous material. Over the months, containers arrived by barge to Portland
every 36 hours, producing 30,000 tonnes of waste; 600 containers that
couldn’t be repaired or sold for further use had to be destroyed.
Each container had to be opened and its contents sorted for waste, recycling
or landfill sites. If hazardous, it required specialised disposal. A
consignment of 20,000 litres of milk, for instance, could only be processed
by one facility in Sheffield, where the cartons were separated from the liquid,
which had to be solidified before disposal.
In one container that was opened, thousands of maggots were feasting on
rotting potatoes. As the months wore on, the summer brought flies,
infestations and smells.
On May 17, the last of the containers were lifted from the vessel. All but two
of the 2,318 have now been accounted for, including four containers each
holding 2m euros’ worth of nickel, retrieved from a waterlogged hold and
sent on to their destination in South Africa.
“By then there was tremendous camaraderie among the team,” Middleton says. “We
knew we had a success on our hands. The world was telling us so. Boy, did we
get smashed that night.”
“This area in Lyme Bay turned out to be the least worst site,” says Julian
Wardlaw, chair of the advisory environment group. “A sandy base, rather than
rocks with many species. We still monitor the sea, but it’s a credit to
everyone it’s gone so well.” The European Commission agreed, welcoming “the
effectiveness of the action taken by the UK… making it possible to avoid a
major disaster”.
In July the ship was intentionally blown apart; the stern, including the
accommodation block with gym and baseball court, was left at Branscombe, the
bow was taken to Harland and Wolff in Belfast for scrap. In November, a
250-tonne cutter was shipped in from France to begin slicing up the
accommodation block. The Napoli’s stern weighs 8,700 tonnes; the aim was to
reduce it to under 5,000 tonnes and lift out the engine. In the spring, the
ship’s shell, now like a soap dish, will finally leave Branscombe for the
scrap yard.
) ) ) ) )
The container industry is 51 years old. In the past five years, it has grown
at the rate of 10% a year. In the 1980s, it was boosted by the discovery of
“just-in-time” manufacturing. Initiated by the Toyota Motor Company, this
involved a switch to having components made by outside suppliers in small
batches to strict standards within very narrow time windows. In the US,
two-fifths of the Fortune 500 manufacturers had started just-in-time
programmes by 2007, drawing on suppliers from around the world, a system
made possible by the container and the computer.
In the book The Box, Marc Levinson gives the example of the allegedly
“all-American” just-in-time Barbie – figure made in China from machines made
in Europe; plastic from Taiwan; nylon hair from Japan; pigments from America.
In 2006, 110m containers went around the globe. Economies of scale mean the
larger the ship, the cheaper the transport cost per box. In 1991, Napoli was
the largest container ship in the world, capable of carrying 3,600 boxes.
Last year the Emma Maersk was launched. The width of a motorway, it can
carry 11,000 containers with a crew of only 13. Maersk is now building 10
more vessels of a similar size. “While they are devising ever bigger
container ships, they should be developing ways of dealing with disaster,”
Middleton says. “They’re not.”
The Napoli was under a British flag, with owners and insurers willing to act
quickly and responsibly, working in co-operation with a response system
unique to the UK. Even then, facilities at times struggled to deal with a
relatively small number of containers.
Captain Kees van Essen, a senior salvage master who worked on the Napoli,
says: “So far, we’ve always solved the problem. But we haven’t yet had
to deal with a container ship holding 8 or 10 or 16 thousand TEUs.”
And what of the contents of the boxes from the Napoli that came ashore to be
disembowelled? Within the 28-day limit, by February 2007, the Receiver of
Wreck had received 1,500 salvage reports – all are still being processed.
What proportion this represents of what was taken from the beach is
impossible to know.
BMW has said that it’s not interested in recovering its spare engine parts –
but it is negotiating over the motorbikes. Eleven people will receive a fee
that reflects the damaged value.
Two bikes were seized with the help of Devon and Cornwall police and the
culprits let off with a warning. Two are still missing. So, in the aftermath
of those three days, when mayhem descended on a secluded Devon village,
there may yet be only two prosecutions.
Edwin Purchase perhaps best sums up the ambivalence of many of the Branscombe
residents. “I didn’t like those first few days, not one bit,” he says. “But
I remember, soon after it started, a map of the UK was on the news. Only one
word was on it: Branscombe. That’s what the Napoli did for us. It put
us on the map.”
What happened to the Napoli?
Owned by Metvale Ltd, under charter to the Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping
company (MSC), the MSC Napoli was built in Korea in 1991. In 2001, after
running aground, she underwent extensive repairs, requiring 3,000 tonnes of
steel. In January 2007, before leaving Antwerp for South Africa, the ship
was inspected by Det Norske Veritas (DNV), a classification society. Such
societies are responsible for ensuring the sound structure, design and
maintenance of ships.
So what went wrong?
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (Maib) report into the Napoli is due
out this spring. Maib has sweeping powers. Interviewees have no right to
silence and no right to a lawyer, but what they say remains confidential.
“Unlike everyone else investigating, such as insurers’ representatives,”
says Stephen Meyer, Maib’s chief inspector, “we’re not after apportioning
blame. We are interested only in finding out what happened, so we can put
safety barriers in place in the future.” It’s likely that more than one
factor contributed to the Napoli splitting in two. The findings are likely
to have dramatic consequences worldwide for the so far poorly regulated
container industry.
Were there problems with the crew?
The Napoli, flying under a British flag, had a crew comprising a number of
nationalities, including people from the UK, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Turkey,
India and the Philippines. In another ship managed by Zodiac, Hyundai
Dominion, which was involved in a collision in the East China Sea,
investigators reported several nationalities aboard with severe
communication problems.
“Mixed nationalities aren’t a problem per se,” says Andrew Linington of
Nautilus UK, the maritime professionals’ union, “but they are if cultural
and language differences aren’t taken into account in training. We’ve
serious concerns about the trend of using the cheapest crews possible, and
are working very long hours to lower cost.”
Did an earlier accident leave the Napoli weakened?
In 1997, MSC Carla broke in two in bad weather in the Azores. Investigators
concluded she had been weakened when she was lengthened by 15 metres in
1984. It seems unlikely, however, that Napoli’s repairs in 2001 played a
part in her cracking open.
Did the loading and stacking of containers on board play a part?
The container industry has remarkably slack monitoring of the way containers
are packed (known as “stuffed”), loaded and lashed on board. A four-year
investigation by the German transporter insurers GDV said that when checks
were done, the results were “shocking”, showing “deficiencies” in about 70%
of containers.
It is not just the hazards of the sea that cause damage; often it’s the
rolling and pitching of a vessel, combined with the sliding, tipping,
friction and weight of cargo insecurely or inappropriately stacked. A cargo
planner who provides a computer plan of where and how cargo is stacked may
have only a fortnight’s training and no experience of sea conditions. Since
profits are made by containers spending only a brief time in port, there is
little opportunity for the crew to check and correct the cargo plan.
Who is liable?
Ship owners insure against loss of or damage to their ships with hull
underwriters. However, they look to the P&I (protection and indemnity) clubs
for insurance against their liabilities to others, including clearing the
wreck of a ship and the wreckage caused by an incident.
1. A Bilbrough & Co Ltd manages the third-party protection and indemnity
insurers The London Club. It will meet the clear-up and removal costs — so
far over £35m — pending the results of continuing investigations.
2. If investigations and legal action prove the ship was not seaworthy and her
owners were negligent, and failed to exercise due diligence, The London Club
will meet the cost of the loss of cargo. Cargo may be worth over £50m, but
liability is limited to around £14m.
3. If the sole cause is a latent weakness in the ship’s design and/or
construction, The London Club will not have to pay out. It could then sue
those involved in the design and building of the Napoli in Kyungnam, Korea.
Dozens of claims, numerous investigations and a great deal of litigation is
likely to follow, taking several years or more to resolve.
Shipping news
It was one year ago today that the MSC Napoli was beached in Lyme Bay. We look
at the events surrounding its demise — and what lies in store for the ship’s
remaining parts
Thursday, Jan 18 The Napoli is in trouble; the crew is rescued from the
lifeboat
Saturday, Jan 20 The Napoli enters Lyme Bay. She is beached a mile from
shore at Branscombe, releasing oil
Sunday, Jan 21 Containers are washed onto the beach and a trickle of
local people is later joined by crowds from outside the village. Contractors
and professional salvors begin the clear-up
Monday, Jan 22 200 people on the beach; crates are broken up
Wednesday, Jan 24 Beach is cordoned off; police regain control. More
oil is released
Saturday, February 3 The last oil is pumped out
Friday, March 16 Devon county council is refused a national inquiry; it
says it will hold its own
Thursday, April 5 Beach reopens to public
Thursday, May 17 The last container is taken from the Napoli
Friday, July 20 Attempts to split up the ship finally succeed
Tuesday, August 7 Bow is towed to Belfast
Monday, August 27 10 tonnes of waste washed up; 12 tonnes of car parts
retrieved from the sea bed
Saturday, Oct 20 to Saturday Oct 27 Napoli exhibition in Branscombe.
The village is given a piece of the mast
Friday, Nov 16 and Saturday, Nov 17 Storms stop the stern being
dismantled
November/December The task of sorting through, cleaning and despatching
of the remaining damaged containers and cargo continues in Portland
March/April 2008 A report into the causes of the Napoli breaking in two
is due to be published by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch
March/April 2008 The stern of the Napoli will finally be removed from
Lyme Bay and taken to a scrap yard
