Ghost ship washed up on Irish coast ‘claimed by owner’

Council warns public to stay away from ‘unstable’ wreck near Ballycotton, County Cork

The “ghost ship” which washed up on the coast of Ireland without any crew has been claimed by someone purporting to represent the owner.

Irish government officials were contacted by the unnamed individual after the MV Alta was blown onto rocks near a fishing village in County Cork on Sunday.

The 77-metre-long cargo vessel had been drifiting across the Atlantic for more than a year after it lost power 1,300 miles southeast of Bermuda.

Cork County Council has warned the public to stay away from the “unstable” wreck because of its location on a “dangerous and inaccessible stretch of coastline”.

However photographers have flocked to the area to take pictures of the rusting hulk at Ballycotton.

On Tuesday the council’s marine contractor boarded the wreck on Tuesday to examine the structure and assess whether it posed any risk of pollution.

No cargo is left on the vessel but a small amount of diesel fuel remains in the tanks, along with a small number of sealed oil containers.

“Plans are currently being evaluated in order to have these materials safely removed from the wreck,” a council spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“Cork County Council remains satisfied that there is currently no visible pollution within the Ballycotton Bay Special Protection Area or nearby proposed natural Heritage Areas.”

Built in 1976, the MV Alta first made headlines in September 2018 when the 10 crew members on board were rescued by the US coastguard.

It was next seen by the Royal Navy’s HMS Protector in the middle of the Atlantic in September last year before being spotted on the Irish coast by Barry McDonald from the local Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

The Irish Revenue said that a Receiver of Wrecks will be appointed by the Irish transport secretary to determine ownership of the vessel.

“I can advise that an individual purporting to represent the owner has made contact and the Receiver of Wreck will be pursuing this matter further, therefore no further information is available,” a Revenue spokesman said.

“Revenue’s immediate priority is to allow the agencies responsible for pollution protection and maritime traffic to assess and manage any environmental risk or potential hazard to other maritime stakeholders.”