Having drifted across Lyme Bay and past Portland Bill, the Ice Prince sank 28 miles south of St Alban’s Head (far headland in the above photo), indeed 32 miles almost directly south of my house.
Apart from the aforementioned oil, she was carrying a cargo of timber, 5238 tonnes of it, to be precise. 2000 tonnes were on the deck and will already be arriving on our local coast as I write. Well, a mountain of timber isn’t ideal, but the Ice Prince could of course have been transporting far more noxious things, I guess that we are lucky.
By coincidence, the 2002 wreck of the Kodima at Whitsand Bay in Cornwall also led to masses of timber washing ashore. Scavengers quickly descended, and much of the timber (allegedly) disappeared into the walls of the sheds that adorn the cliffs behind. Although the authorities have warned against scavenging timber on the Dorset and Devon coast, presumably the car parks of B&Q and Homebase will be unusually quiet this weekend …
