THIS is the bizarre tale of an abandoned “ghost ship” which washed up along the coast after nearly 17 months adrift in the ocean.
The abandoned cargo ship MV Alta washed up along the rocks near Ballycotton in County Cork, Ireland in February 2020 – without a single soul onboard.
Its arrival came following Storm Dennis, which battered Britain and Ireland, leading to several deaths and flooding thousands of homes.
Now nicknamed the “Ballycotton Ghost Ship“, the MV Alta has remained in the same location since it ran aground.
In October 2018, the Alta was travelling from Greece to Haiti when it suffered a main engine failure in the Atlantic.
The crew of 10 people was then rescued by the United States Coast Guard around 1,380 miles southeast of Bermuda.
The 253ft Tanzanian-flagged cargo ship, which had been without power for 20 days, was abandoned, and mystery surrounds its movements for the following months.
In September 2019, the Royal Navy‘s HMS Protector spotted it in the mid-Atlantic, writing on Twitter at the time: “We closed the vessel to make contact and offer our assistance, but no one replied!
“Whilst investigations continue we’re unable to give you more details on this strange event.”
The ship likely just kept on drifting, doing so for just under 17 months, covering a distance of 2,300 nautical miles before it ran aground along the coast of Ireland.
A jogger who was out for a Sunday lunchtime run spotted the ship when it washed up at Ballycotton.
The vessel’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) was not working after it was abandoned, so mystery still surrounds much of its journey.
The data which remain reveal that the ship was in Piraeus, Greece, in October 2017, before sailing around the country’s shoreline and docking in Kalamata in November.
Over the next ten months, it visited a number of other Greek ports, before appearing in Ceuta in northern Africa in September 2018.
Georgios Hatzimanolis, analyst at ship tracking website MarineTraffic, told Wired in 2020 that the vessel is “truly a mystery ship”.
He added: “Since August 2015 it has been switching [AIS] on and off sporadically while making some really strange trips.
“One from Genoa to Athens and then it switched it off again for a year and a half, then switched it back.”
This is apparently “not normal behaviour”.
October 2017: Alta is in Piraeus, Greece and sails around the country.
November 2017: Vessel docks in Kalamata, and visits several other Greek ports over the next 10 months.
September 2018: Ship appears in Ceuta in northern Africa, where it sets off on its final manned trip bound for Haiti.
October 2018: Alta suffers engine failure in the Atlantic and crew of 10 is rescued by US Coast Guard 1,380 miles southeast of Bermuda. Ship is then abandoned.
September 2019: Royal Navy’s HMS Protector spotted the vessel in the mid-Atlantic.
February 2020: Ship is washed ashore in Ireland, where the wreckage remains.
The odd behaviour continued until the ship arrived at Ceuta, where at embarked on its final manned journey bound for Haiti – before being abandoned in the ocean.
It seems that fortune favoured this particular ghost ship, which managed to avoid major shipping routes and other obstacles, leaving its cargo of oil barrels intact.
Whatever its history, the Alta, which was built in 1976, wound up perched sideways along a set of jagged rocks along the Irish coast.
Ballycotton RNLI Lifeboat chief John Tattan told The Irish Examiner at the time the event was “one in a million”.
He added: “It has come all the way up from the African coast, west of the Spanish coast, west of the English coast and up to the Irish coast.
“I have never, ever seen anything abandoned like that before.”
In more recent times, the tragic story of a Barbados “ghost ship” which was found with bodies of 11 unknown passengers was revealed in February this year.
The haunting sight dotted the Atlantic Ocean, drifting 130km off the coast of Ragged Point, Barbados.
Barbadian coastguards eventually braved boarding the unmarked, unmanned 6m white yacht – only to make a tragic discovery.
