Around 2100 hrs of Sunday 9th July the stern mooring lines together with the bollard of the Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s 25-year-old car carrier DON QUIJOTE broke and ripped out, causing the vessel to drift in the Bremerhaven Harbour from the west bank to the east bank at the Lloyd Werft shipyard and damaged the floating and dry dock, quay, and brought down a shipyard crane.
The Bremen police claimed that there was considerable damage to property estimated in the “high six figures” but fortunately no one was injured.
The ship was later secured by tugs and returned to the original berth. The cause of the incident is under investigation, but the Bremen police did say that one of the most likely causes was a storm that hit Bremerhaven.
The crane had stood at the yard for 50 years, after being made by VEB Baumechanik Barleben in what was then East Germany. Contact was made between the vessel’s bow and the 450-tonne shipyard crane, with a lifting capacity of 25 tonnes at the Lloyd Werft shipyard.
Accident Images by Bremen Police while car carrier images are of the 2009 built car carrier TORINO at Valletta, Malta back to 25th November, 2020.
