Following a technical issue with a tug, the cocaine-busted bulker MV Matthew finally left Cork Harbour yesterday, as Afloat reported, after a 24-hour-plus delay to its voyage bound for Bulgaria, writes Jehan Ashmore.
Assisting operations was Ocean Challenger, the largest Irish-flagged tug, which Afloat tracked from its Dinish Island base off Castletownbere. The powerful 62-tonne bollard pull (tbp) tug joined Cork-based tugs and an accompanying Greek-flagged tug, Foteine F, which also tracked from Aviles, northern Spain. It is assigned as the sole tug to tow the 28,647-tonne bulk carrier from the Port of Cork to the Black Sea port of Varna, where it is expected to arrive around the first week of August.
With minor repairs completed on a tug, it joined three more yesterday evening that assembled at Marino Point Jetty. The busy scene saw Atlantic Marine & Towage’s Ocean Challenger aid the MV Matthew amidships on the port side, while Doyle Shipping Group’s (DSG) green-hulled pair DGS Alex (55 tbp) was to starboard, and DGS Titan (77 tbp) managed astern with the bow handled by Foteine F, also involved in the complex towing procedure that began to head downriver.
The crew of Ocean Challenger has facilities comprising a galley, a mess room, an office, a laundry room, and a gym. As for accommodation, cabins are based on the configuration of 3 single cabins and 3 double cabins. The tug also forms Ireland’s largest fleet of tugs and workboats.
As for the 2001 built-in-China bulker, which had been previously named Honmon, it had lain idle at the jetty since September 2023 following Ireland's largest-ever cocaine interception of €157 million, which involved a daring Army Ranger Wing storming the vessel at sea by helicopter, with state agencies assisting, among them the Naval Service, with warning shots fired from LÉ William Butler Yeats (P63). The record-breaking drug interdiction off the Irish south coast led to eight criminals being prosecuted.
Since MV Matthew’s seizure, arrest, and detainment in September 2023, it has cost the State (Revenue Commissioners), which have confirmed to be in the region of almost €17m through berthing fees, crewing, maintenance, and security coupled with surveys and legal fees.
Carrier's New Career
It transpires the Panama-flagged bulker carrier just shy of 190 m is not to be scrapped but sold to new shipowners and refurbished. However, the proceeds from the 25-year-old bulker will not generate sufficient funds to cover these expenses.
Its destination is Varna with an arrival delivery date of 9 August, Afloat understands, and it is to be used in the Black Sea grain trade.
Now that the bulker has finally vacated the centrally located Cork Harbour jetty, local residents will no longer be complaining of noise generated from the ship for almost the last three years.
As MV Matthew was towed downriver, it first passed the slipways used by the Cross River Ferries, and when off nearby Rushbrooke is Cork Dockyard, where owners Doyle Shipping Group (DSG) are notably reviving vessel building at the former V.C.D. shipyard, albeit in the form of small vehicle ferry on the short service crossing.
When the sold MV Matthew entered the open sea off the entrance of Cork Harbour, an Afloat source says the bulker no longer required services from the Ocean Challenger, which then set off to its homeport in West Cork.
