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    Ship in Need of Repairs Has Explosive Cargo, but No Dock

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    The MV Ruby has meandered around Europe’s northwestern coastline under a cloud of suspicion over its thousands of tons of Russian fertilizer.The MV Ruby has languished off the coast of Britain for more than a week, its hull cracked, its propeller damaged. Yet no port will let the ship dock, fearing that the thousands of tons of Russian fertilizer it carries could lead to a disastrous explosion.Over the weekend, the MV Ruby remained 14 miles off the coast of Kent, in southeastern England, where it has been since last month.For weeks now, the ship has sailed around northern Europe’s coastline, looking for a friendly port. But no country has allowed it to approach, fearing a repeat of the explosion in 2020 in Lebanon that destroyed the Port of Beirut and killed more than 190 people.The ship is reportedly ferrying 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, a substance used for fertilizer. An explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate devastated the Lebanese port and was felt as far away as Cyprus in the Mediterranean. The MV Ruby may be carrying more than seven times as much.The ship’s stalled journey underscores the distrust and suspicion that vessels linked to Russia have faced since the start of the war in Ukraine. While the MV Ruby is registered in Malta and owned by a Maltese company, Ruby Enterprise, and is managed by Serenity Shipping, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, the Russian fertilizer it is ferrying has caused some governments to worry that the ship may be a Trojan horse, sent to sabotage vital shipping and port infrastructure.The ship’s managers and some maritime authorities have tried with little success to assure the public that the cargo poses no threat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cruise Lines Change Their Itineraries to Avoid Helene’s Impact

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      Several cruise lines operating out of Florida’s west coast and the Gulf of Mexico altered their itineraries on Wednesday to avoid Hurricane Helene’s path.Carnival Cruise Line canceled port stops at Cozumel, Mexico, for several ships. including Carnival Paradise, Valor, Breeze and Horizon. Two ships, Carnival Elation and Carnival Paradise, could not return to Jacksonville and Tampa after the ports were closed on Wednesday, but the cruise line said it tentatively expected ports to reopen on Friday, depending on its post-storm assessment.“The safety of our guests and crew remains our priority, and our ships are sailing a safe distance from the storm,” Carnival said in a statement on Wednesday.Royal Caribbean has also adjusted the itineraries of seven west Caribbean sailings, including Independence of the Seas, Grandeur of the Seas and Serenade of the Seas, which will be making port stops in Nassau, in the Bahamas, instead of Cozumel.Guests onboard MSC Cruise line’s Seashore were informed that they would not be able to return to Port Canaveral in Florida on Thursday because of high winds and would instead have a bonus day at sea. More

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      Justice Department Files $100 Million Suit in Fatal Baltimore Bridge Collapse

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      The crash of the Dali into the Francis Scott Key Bridge killed six people. The federal government says the owner and the operator were “grossly negligent” and “reckless.”The U.S. Justice Department filed a legal claim on Wednesday against the owner and operator of the container ship that collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge last March, killing six workers and paralyzing the Port of Baltimore for weeks.The lawsuit asserts that the companies’ actions leading up to the catastrophe were “outrageous, grossly negligent, willful, wanton, and reckless.”The government is seeking more than $100 million in damages to cover the costs of the sprawling emergency response to the disaster and the federal aid to port employees who were put out of work. “Those costs should be borne by the shipowner and operator, not the American taxpayer,” said Benjamin Mizer, a deputy associate attorney general who is in charge of the Justice Department’s civil division. He added that the department would be seeking punitive damages as well, “to try to keep this type of conduct from ever happening again.” The action on Wednesday did not name an amount for the punitive damages the department was seeking.Filed in federal court in Maryland, the Justice Department’s action lays out in detail what investigators have learned about the ship’s short and catastrophic journey that night, describing a cascade of failures onboard and multiple points when the disaster could have been prevented.Because of poor maintenance or “jury-rigged” fixes to serious problems aboard the ship, known as the Dali, “none of the four means available to help control the Dali — her propeller, rudder, anchor, or bow thruster — worked when they were needed to avert or even mitigate this disaster,” the suit asserts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dozens of Major Bridges Lack Shields to Block Wayward Ships

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      Ben Franklin Bridge Crescent City Connection Dolphin Expressway Bridge Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge Lewis and Clark Bridge Memphis-Arkansas Bridge Mid-Hudson Bridge Newburgh-Beacon Bridge Robert C. Byrd Bridge Sherman Minton Bridge Tobin Bridge Veterans Memorial Bridge Aerial photos by Nearmap and Vexcel Imaging More

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      Tangled in Steel With No Way Out: How the Crew Stuck in Baltimore Is Faring

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      Twenty-two seafarers from India find themselves not only trapped in the ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, but also in an unexpected spotlight.Even from miles away, the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is a jarring visual: Chunks of steel jut above the water like metallic icebergs. Twisted gray beams protrude in crooked positions. From a park near Fort McHenry, visitors can see the giant cargo ship that struck the bridge and remains lodged in the wreckage.Less visible, however, are the 22 crew members from India who have remained on the ship, named the Dali, since the disaster on Tuesday.Little is publicly known about them other than that they are seafarers who embarked on a journey aboard the 985-foot-long cargo ship that was on its way to Sri Lanka, carrying 4,700 shipping containers, when it lost power and struck the Key Bridge, causing the structure to collapse.Since the accident, which killed six construction workers, the crew members have found themselves in an unexpected spotlight. While keeping the ship operable, they are answering a deluge of questions from officials investigating the nighttime catastrophe, as the evidence of what occurred lays around them in mangled ruins stretching across the bow and deck.While officials investigate what could have caused the tragedy, another question has emerged this week: What could the crew members, who have limited access to the outside world, be going through right now?“They must feel this weight of responsibility that they couldn’t stop it from happening,” said Joshua Messick, the executive director of the Baltimore International Seafarers’ Center, a religious nonprofit that seeks to protect the rights of mariners.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Questions Swirl Over Baltimore Bridge Collapse

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      Questions swirl over the bridge’s collapse after a massive cargo ship slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments after losing power early on Tuesday.As a spring tide rushed out of Baltimore harbor just after midnight on Tuesday, the hulking outlines of a cargo ship nearly three football fields long and stacked high with thousands of containers sliced through frigid waters toward the Francis Scott Key Bridge.The vessel, the Dali, was a half-hour into its 27-day journey from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka.Then the lights on the Dali went dark. The crew urgently reported to local authorities that they had lost power and propulsion. The ship bore down on the bridge.In a scene captured from a livestreaming camera, the ship smashed into a pillar of the bridge with so much force that the massive southern and central spans of the bridge collapsed within seconds.A highway repair crew was on the structure, working the night shift, filling potholes. At least eight members of the construction crew plunged into the 50-foot-deep Patapsco River below.Six people were presumed dead as officials suspended the search-and-rescue effort on Tuesday night.“Based on the length of time we’ve gone in this search, the extensive search efforts that we’ve put into it, the water temperature, that at this point we do not believe we are going to find any of these individuals still alive,” Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.Two construction workers were rescued from the water; one went to the hospital and was later released.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More