Cargo ship towed to safety after grounding near lighthouse

A cargo ship that grounded near a lighthouse on Monday has been towed to safer waters in Cornwall.

The 31,000-tonne Mazarine lost power and grounded near Wolf Rock lighthouse, nine miles off Cornwall.

After being re-floated and drifting for several hours under a lifeboat escort, the ship was towed by a tug and is currently outside Falmouth.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said it would remain there while a decision was made on what to do next.

A spokesperson for the MCA said: "A tug, escorted by firstly the Lizard RNLI lifeboat and then Falmouth's, towed the vessel east of the Lizard where it remains while relevant inspections are carried out in sheltered waters."

Will Bond, from Falmouth Coastguard, told BBC Radio Cornwall: "It's not quite in Falmouth. It is just outside harbour limits.

"The reason they have come into safer waters is just to carry out some inspections."

Miles Carden, from Falmouth Harbour Commissioners, said: "She is just sitting outside port limits and we are just working with the ship owners and other representatives just to consider her condition prior to allowing her in the harbour.

"We must make sure that, if she is to enter the harbour, she doesn't cause a bigger problem than she is currently causing.

"At the moment she is in a safe position."

He added: "We don't know the plan yet. That is down to the vessel's insurers and operators.

"I suspect they will want surveys to assess any damage and we will go from there.

"Hopefully this morning we will get some more information and then have a plan for the vessel."

The ship's operator CLdN said the ballast tanks on the cargo ship had been damaged but there had been no pollution and the vessel was "stable".

A spokesperson on behalf of the operator said on Tuesday morning that they were "now waiting for permission for the vessel to enter the Falmouth port limits to carry out further inspections of the vessel".

A spokesperson for Trinity House, which owns and operates Wolf Rock Lighthouse, said it had deployed its support vessel THV Galatea "to help assess any impact that may have been caused by the incident".

They added that it would be "followed up by further structural surveys".

The roll-on, roll-off vessel had been en-route to Zeebrugge, Belgium, from Ireland when it lost power.

The coastguard was alerted to the situation at 09:10 BST on Monday.

RNLI lifeboats from Sennen Cove and Penlee went to the scene of the grounding and were joined by the Scillonian ferry taking passengers to the Isles of Scilly, in case anyone needed to be evacuated.

CLdN said the 22 crew and three passengers on board the vessel were safe and unharmed.

The RNLI said on Tuesday that 28 crew members on four lifeboats had been deployed on Monday in response to the situation; from Sennen Cove, Penlee, The Lizard and Falmouth.

While a tug was tasked to provide a tow, two lifeboats remained on scene to provide safety cover.

Ollie George, Sennen Cove's RNLI Coxswain said: "When we launched initially, we thought we might be facing a situation where we were having to evacuate the crew from the vessel, and we were preparing ourselves for a very difficult situation."

Tom Mansell, RNLI lifesaving lead said: "28 lifeboat crew responded to the pager and were out over the course of nearly 15 hours in challenging conditions... Our crew will have left day jobs and family to attend the service, something they never question."

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