In the early morning of 14 December 2002 the Norwegian car carrier Tricolor, on her way from Zeebrugge to Southampton with nearly 3,000 new cars, collided with the container ship Kariba in the westbound lane off Dunkirk. The Tricolor capsized and sank in about 30 m of water, about 17 nautical miles off the French coast. Her crew was rescued. The wreck lay on its side just below the surface, in the middle of one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. The next night, despite warnings, three guard ships and a lit buoy, the Dutch cargo ship Nicola ran onto it and had to be towed free. More guard ships and more buoys were added, one of them with a radar beacon. Even so, on 1 January 2003 the loaded Turkish tanker Vicky hit the same wreck and was floated free by the rising tide. From July 2003 a consortium led by Smit cut the wreck into nine pieces of about 3,000 tonnes each with a cutting cable studded with carbide and lifted them out one by one. The work was declared complete on 27 October 2004. The map shows the traffic separation scheme and buoys as they are today, from OpenStreetMap sea marks. The ship movements and the positions of the guard ships and wreck buoys are drawn schematically.
Source: Facts: Wikipedia (MV Tricolor), Smit / Combinatie Berging Tricolor. Sea marks: © OpenStreetMap contributors. Coastline: GSHHG. Visualisation by The Moving Sea
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