15 December, 2017 by Juan Carlos Díaz Lorenzo

The Slow Agony of the First 'Magdalena del Mar'

Almost twenty years after it ran aground at 12º 10’ N and 69º 56’ W, this is the recent appearance of the merchant ship named “Denisse Marie”, whose remains, as we see in the photos kindly sent to us by José R., evoke the slow agony of the persistent waves that have been cracking its maritime silhouette. The coordinates place us very close to Cape San Román and a small village called Puerto Escondido, the northernmost locality in the geography of Venezuela, located in the Paraguaná Peninsula, Falcón State.

Written on the bow in molded letters, its original name can still be read: “Stadt Elsfleth” and its design evokes a specific stage of Spanish shipbuilding, as several ships of similar design were built thereafter at the Basse Sambre-Corcho shipyard, S.A. (CORBASA), in Santander, controlled by Belgian capital and converted, starting in 1971, into Astilleros del Atlántico, thus beginning, until its closure, the stage of Jaime Pérez-Maura.

Construction number 109 of the aforementioned shipyard, it was launched with the name “Magdalena del Mar”, contracted by Equimar Marítima, although it entered service in 1970 under the aforementioned Austrian name. It had a twin ship named “Catalina del Mar” and is the fourth of the 17 container ships built at the mentioned shipyard, with a capacity of 218 TEUs. Weighing 3,442 gross tons, 2,317 net tons, and 5,110 deadweight tons, it measured 99.70 m in total length - 79 m between perpendiculars - 15.22 m in beam, 7.70 m in depth, and 6.50 m in maximum draft. It was powered by a Barreras-Deutz RBV 12M350 engine, with a power of 4,000 horsepower and a speed of 15 knots.

For almost twenty years, between 1976 and 1995, the aforementioned ship sailed under the names “Cheshire Progress” (1976-1978), “Progress” (1978-1981), “St. Anns Bay” (1981-1988), “Gregory” (1988-1992), and “Lisa Marie” (1992-1995). In 1995 it was purchased by a Venezuelan company linked to the Capriles family and was renamed “Denisse Marie”. For a time, it was loading mineral coal in La Ceiba (Lake Maracaibo), steel sheets, wire rod, and rebar at the VENELUM terminal destined for the Caribbean islands, and finally it was loading salt in Araya.

On what would be its last voyage, on May 8, 1998, it ran aground at the reference point. The causes are unclear, although it is said that the ship was loaded with salt on its way to the United States, and there may have been problems with the payment for the cargo or with the main engine; the fact is that it ran aground, the owner abandoned it in favor of the insurance, which collected the policy, and although attempts were made to refloat it later, the efforts were in vain and the ship remained forever where it is. Some time ago, worn down by corrosion, a piece of the bow fell off, and thus, little by little, the day will come when it will be just a memory and a pile of rusted scrap.