22 August, 2019 by Juan Carlos Díaz Lorenzo

The ship “Prosperity” leaves Algeciras after four years of abandonment

The judicial auction of the ships “Ocean Sparkle” and “Prosperity”, which had been abandoned in the port of Algeciras Bay since 2015, has been resolved; the former is already on its way to the scrapyard, and the latter is about to follow in the wake of the tugboat “Balaban”, after being awarded for 403,000 euros to a Turkish company.

The ship “Prosperity”, flagged in Moldova and owned by a shipowner from Dubai, has been abandoned since July 2015, several months after its arrival at the port of Algeciras when it was heading to Italy with a cargo of 2,300 tons of ferrosilicon.

The Maritime Captaincy ordered its detention after detecting 15 deficiencies, twelve of which were very serious, and the shipowner stated that he could not afford the repairs or the amount of the sanctioning file, so he abandoned the ship and its crew, who have survived thanks to the help of ITF, Caritas, Red Cross, and some companies that have donated food and water, reports the digital edition of the newspaper europasur.es.

This is a very battered ship – it has had thirteen name changes – built in 1997 in Turkey. Weighing 6,459 gross tons and 8,865 deadweight tons, it measures 130.80 m in overall length and 17.70 m in beam and is powered by a MAN engine, with a power of 6,120 horsepower on a shaft, allowing it to maintain a speed of 17 knots. IMO Code 9043122.