Report sees risks for container ships in shallow sea

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A Dutch safety watchdog said Thursday that it is “undesirable” for large container ships to use a shipping route through an environmentally sensitive, shallow sea off the coast of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark in heavy northwesterly storms because of the heightened risk of them losing their cargo.

The conclusion came in a report by the Dutch Safety Board into the loss of hundreds of containers from a ship, the MSC Zoe, on New Year’s Day 2019, that led to tons of cargo washing up on nearby beaches.

“The lessons to be learned from this accident must result in a better risk management of container transport on the shipping routes,” the report said.

The ship, carrying more than 8,000 containers, was sailing north of a chain of islands in the Wadden Sea on a route from the Portuguese port of Sines to Bremerhaven, Germany, when it was battered by waves kicked up by a northwesterly storm. It lost 342 containers and 3,000 tons of cargo overboard, the Safety Board report said.

There are two shipping routes north of the Wadden Islands — a southern passage, which is shallower and closer to the islands, and a northern route. The Zoe was using the southern route.

“The Dutch Safety Board concludes that due to the value of the Wadden area, it is undesirable that these container ships choose the southern shipping route past the Wadden coast during a northwestern storm,” the board said.