One of the North Sea Standby Safety Vessel that was bought locally in Malta was the 1971 built steel hulled CARMELA. She was brought to Malta early 90’s as CAM SPRITE sporting black hull and was based at Mgarr Harbour, Gozo.
She was built in UK by W. R. Cunis Ltd., Woolwich as FARID with yard no 667 completed for Mohammed Javed Motoghri, Iran on May 1971 but delivery not taken up, and she was sold by builders during June of 1973 to Frifar Entrepostada Baiia a Farta S.a.r.l. of Angola and in September 1977 she was bought by Gallic Shipping Ltd, UK and converted to a standby safety vessel of which in 1978 she was renamed as RENFREW and in June 1978 she was chartered to Safetyships Ltd, Aberdeen.


In 1979 she was lengthened by few metres with final dimensions as 26.98 metres as length with 8.03 metres width and maximum draught of 2.02 metres and in 1990 she was renamed CAM SPRITE (In February 1992 a parliamentary question (pq) was asked regarding Standby Safety Vessels and CAM SPRITE was mentioned) – https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1992/feb/03/offshore-standby-vessels
During 1997 she was sold locally and used to berth at Oil Wharf inside Dockyard Creek, Grand Harbour bearing fishing registration F 22.

In November 1997 she was renamed as CARMELA (According to records she was already registered as CARMELA with the Merchant Shipping Directorate no 101 since 1995) with new fishing registration as F 301 and used to berth at Coal Wharf inner.

Back to 8th July 1999 she was escorted to Grand Harbour, by the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) Kondor Class Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) P 31 and berthed at the Old Customs House when a Board & Search Party inspected the vessel together with the Malta Police & Customs.






The second quarter of 2007 she was seen laid up at Church Wharf.



In June 2010 warrant of arrest WN 1957 was issued to her owners as Britannia Shipping International Ltd while she was laid up at Church Wharf next to Marsa Power Plant wearing the company livery.

During January 2011 she emerged with a new name as MAR NOVA.
Watermarked Photos are by Capt. Lawrence Dalli otherwise stated. Do not use these images without my permission. © All rights reserved. Malta Ship Photos & Action Photos – www.maltashipphotos.com

Published – Sunday 1st August ,2021