MV RMS Mulheim
Encyclopedia
The RMS Mülheim was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
cargo ship
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
that was built in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and launched in May 1999. It was wrecked on 22 March 2003 at Land's End
Land's End
Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Description
The ship was built by TulceaTulcea
Tulcea is a city in Dobrogea, Romania. It is the administrative center of Tulcea county, and has a population of 92,379 as of 2007. One village, Tudor Vladimirescu, is administered by the city.- History :...
Shipyard, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
as yard number 246. She was ordered in December 1997, and the keel was laid in March 1998, before being launched in May 1999. The ship was 1,599 GT, 780 NT and 2,500 DWT.
The ship was 89.74 metre long overall (84.94 metre between perpendiculars) with a beam of 11.67 metre, a depth of 5.8 metre, and a draught of 4.45 metre. She had a hold capacity of 12850 cubic metres (16,807.2 cu yd) and had a container
Intermodal container
An intermodal container is a standardized reusable steel box used for the safe, efficient and secure storage and movement of materials and products within a global containerized intermodal freight transport system...
capacity of 130 TEU
Twenty-foot equivalent unit
The twenty-foot equivalent unit is an inexact unit of cargo capacity often used to describe the capacity of container ships and container terminals...
.
The ship was powered by a 2039 bhp Deutz
Deutz AG
Deutz AG is an engine manufacturer, based in Cologne, Germany.-History:The company was founded by Nikolaus Otto, inventor of the four-stroke internal combustion engine, in 1864 as N. A...
SBV8M 628 diesel engine
Diesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
, which could propel her at 13 knots (25.5 km/h).
History
The ship was originally named Zeus. She was placed under the flag of Antigua and BarbudaFlag of convenience
The term flag of convenience describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship. Ships are registered under flags of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the...
. She was owned by Kg CDL Leasing GmbH & Co Duisburg, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. By July 1999, she had been renamed RMS Mülheim and placed under the management of Rhein-Maas-und See Schiffahrtskontor (RMS). The IMO Number 9177870 was allocated and RMS Mülheim used the call sign V2AD1.
Loss
On 22 March 2003, RMS Mülheim was on a voyage from CorkCork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
to Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, Germany, transporting 2,200 tonnes of scrap car plastic. The ship ran aground at approximately 0500 GMT
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...
in Gamper Bay, between Land's End
Land's End
Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....
and Sennen Cove
Sennen Cove
Sennen Cove is a small coastal settlement in the parish of Sennen, in Cornwall, United Kingdom. According to the Penwith District Council, the population of this settlement was estimated at 180 persons in 2000.-Geography:...
, during which time there was "moderate visibility and fog
Fog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
patches". On investigation, it was discovered that the chief officer—who had been on watch at the time—had caught his trousers in the lever of his chair when trying to get up, causing him to fall and rendering him unconscious. By the time he regained consciousness, RMS Mülheim was already bearing down on the shoreline. Although the Sennen Lifeboat and Land's End Coastguard Cliff Team were able to reach the wreck quickly, the six man Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
crew of the vessel were airlifted to safety by a search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...
helicopter from RNAS Culdrose
RNAS Culdrose
Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose , based in Cornwall, near Helston, on the Lizard Peninsula, has three major roles: serving the Fleet Air Arm's front line Sea King and Merlin helicopter squadrons; providing search and rescue for the South West region; and training specialists for the Royal Navy...
. The members of the crew were treated for shock
Acute stress reaction
Acute stress reaction is a psychological condition arising in response to a terrifying or traumatic event...
at the Sennen Cove Lifeboat Station.
There was diesel oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
leaking into the ocean. The concerned agencies were informed, and a salvage
Salvage
Salvage means 'rescue' and as such may refer to:* Marine salvage, the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo and sometimes the crew from peril* Salvage tug, a type of tugboat used to rescue or salvage ships which are in distress or in danger of sinking...
operation was attempted. On 23 May 2003 RMS Mülheim was declared a constructive total loss. The salvage work was provided by the leading company Wijsmuiler Salvage. To remove as much cargo as possible, a conveyor belt system was used. When the weather and tide permitted, workers on the wreck filled jumbo-sized bags with the ship's cargo. Those bags were then brought up the cliff by the conveyor, which had been placed on the cliff just above the wreck. The operation ended on 29 May 2003. Although most of the cargo was removed, some was lost to the ocean.
On 7 October 2003, in heavy seas, the ship was broken into two pieces. On 31 October 2003, the swells pushed the wreck of the RMS Mülheim into a rocky inlet called Castle Zawn. At that time the wreck was demolished down to its superstructure
Superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships...
.
Aftermath
A year after the wreck Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) reported that plastic and foamFoam
-Definition:A foam is a substance that is formed by trapping gas in a liquid or solid in a divided form, i.e. by forming gas regions inside liquid regions, leading to different kinds of dispersed media...
from the wreckage was still washing up on Cornish beaches. Neither breaks down in the ocean, and the organisation were afraid that the waste from the wreck would remain for years.
Land's End - the place of the wreck
Land's End is the most westerly point of CornwallCornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
and mainland Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. Land's End is the subject of enormous storms. Romans
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
called it "Bolerium", the seat of storms, and the old Cornish
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...
name is "Penn-an-Wlas", end of the land.
The treacherous reefs of Land's End are notorious for their shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
s over the centuries.
One of the richest shipwrecks was found there. Merchant Royal
Merchant Royal
The Merchant Royal also known as Royal Merchant, was a 17th century English merchant ship lost at sea off Land's End, Cornwall in rough weather on 23 September 1641....
, which sank on 23 September 1641 whilst returning to London. The survivors provided a detailed description of the lost cargo — described in 1641 as "300,000 Pounds in silver, 100,000 Pounds in gold, and as much again in jewel" — as well as a general location near the Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...
, about "21 leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
" (about 35 to 40 miles) from Lands End. Great number of the intriguing wrecks make Land's End a desirable diving
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
destination.