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ocean drover fire

World’s Largest Livestock Carrier Catches Fire in Fremantle [PHOTOS]

Rob Almeida
Total Views: 341
October 9, 2014

Ocean Drover on fire, image (c) Capt.Igor Kondranin/gCaptain

MV Ocean Drover, the world’s largest, purpose-built livestock carrier caught fire this morning at 0900 local time while docked in Fremantle, Western Australia today.  The fire started in the ship’s accommodation area and one crew member is being treated ashore for burns and three others are under observation by doctors in Fremantle according to ship owner Wellard Group.

Photo courtesy Jeff Spagnol
Photo courtesy Jeff Spagnol

As of noon, the firefighting effort and response by local authorities was still ongoing, but was contained to the bridge and accommodation area.  The owner notes that no livestock were on board the vessel at the time of the fire and the ship was preparing to load cattle for transport to Indonesia early next week.

Photo courtesy John Meade
Photo courtesy John Meade

Update: Igor Kondranin, the captain of a ship nearby the Ocean Drover sends us the following update: “It seems for now fire is extinguished. Fire brigades are continue to cooling bridge and superstructure.”

Here’s a shot of the fire fighting efforts from shore.

ITIC has warned of continued attempts by fraudsters to target payments between shipping companies. Speaking at the 45th FONASBA Annual Meeting in Gothenburg, ITIC claims director Andrew Jamieson explained that recent cases had been variations on earlier frauds. In April this year, ITIC warned its members about a scam resulting in pre-funded port costs being diverted to a fake bank account. In each case the owners received an email advising them that the port agent’s bank account was inoperable because of an annual audit. If the owners complied with the instructions, which came from an email address very similar to the agent’s, the funds were stolen. Jamieson explained, “In recent cases, the fraudsters have changed their story. A ship manager received a message asking if money could be sent directly to the agent’s foreign exchange broker who ‘could secure banknotes which were in short supply in that part of the world’. Unfortunately, the ship manager queried the instruction by simply hitting the ‘Reply’ button, asking, ‘As we don't know the broker, would it be possible to remit to your bank account as usual?’ If the ship manager had checked its records first and seen that the email address did not correspond to the details it held for its principal, the attempted fraud would have been uncovered.” Not all attempted frauds succeed. In another case, a Norwegian shipbroker foiled an attempt to steal a monthly hire payment by questioning a request to forward revised payment details. He telephoned his contact in the owner’s accounts department, who confirmed that the request was spurious. Photo courtesy John Campbell
Photo courtesy John Campbell

The MV Ocean Drover is capable of transporting 75,000 sheep or 18,000 cattle to major markets around the globe.

Vessel particulars:

  • Length: 180 metres
  • Breadth: 31.1 metres
  • Gross tonnage: 33.774,14 tonnes
  • Livestock area: 24,000 sq metres
  • Number of decks: 9
  • Summer draft: 8.2 metres
  • Fresh water capacity: 2, 740,000 litres
  • Fresh water production: 600 tonnes per day from 4 reverse osmosis desalination plants
  • Fodder Capacity: 1500 tonnes
  • Air circulation: 60 air changes/hour
  • Speed: 20 knots
  • Engines: Man B. & W. 7S50MC-C
  • Crew: 45

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