Owners of carship, Hoegh Osaka say the last of around 1,200 Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles are being removed from parking areas at Southampton docks at the end of this week as mystery continues to surround their future fate.
The condition of the JLR cars – along with 65 Minis and one Rolls-Royce Wraith as well as 105 JCBs – is unknown following the deliberate grounding of the 51,000t ship after it developed a severe list when leaving the Port of Southampton in January. BMW however, confirmed the Minis remain undamaged.
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“All the Mini vehicles were unloaded from the vessel several weeks ago and no damage was sustained,” a BMW spokeswoman told just-auto.
The cargo, valued according to estimates between GBP27m (US$40m) and GBP35m, was destined for initial stops in Bremerhaven and Hamburg, followed by several more ports of call in Middle East destinations such as as Bahrain, Kuwait, Jeddah and Jabal Ali (Dubai), with the ship subject to 3,000t of water pouring in following a crack in the vessel’s side.
“The last part of the cargo is being removed from the parking area of the cruise terminal by the end of the week at Southampton and is going back to Jaguar Land Rover,” a Hoegh Osaka spokesman for owners, Hoegh Autoliners, told just-auto.
“She [carship] is back on the Hoegh run and is due back in Southampton on 25 April. The [repair] work done at [UK port] Falmouth was steel work and stantions – not too complicated – and was done in the time frame allowed [of] ten days.
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By GlobalData“So in a sense, back to normal. Obviously it could have been a lot worse.”
Salvage work by Dutch company, Svitzer, was complicated by the Hoegh Osaka listing at 52° after it was towed to open water, a situation added to by severe storms battering the English coast in January.
Even once the gales had abated, crews were obliged to use mountaineering expertise to navigate the ship in near darkness after being helicoptered onto the vessel’s severely listing deck, hazardous work given high praise by Hoegh Autoliners which cited a “great job.”
The owners are now waiting for a report from the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), but the initial destination of the cars remains unknown, despite some of them appearing to be driven off the ship in relatively good condition
“We await the report from the MAIB,” said the Hoegh Autoliners spokesman. “That could be any time within a year from the time of the incident itself.
“The company is waiting for this report to come out to see what lessons can be learned from it.”
The Hoegh Osaka is currently sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar before heading for the UK.
Neither Jaguar Land Rover nor JCB were immediately available for comment.
