Ship washed up in East Cork gives up the ghost

Cork’s ghost ship has split in two after a spate of storms and bad weather in recent months.

The MV Alta washed up in East Cork on February 16 2020 and has been grounded along the coast of Ballyandreane in Ballycotton ever since.

A local information Twitter page called @BallycottonIRE shared some pictures of the boat since it snapped in half.

And she has finally split pic.twitter.com/Z8zQVPPe6C

— Ballycotton (@BallycottonIRE) March 12, 2022

The MV Alta has a long and mysterious history since being abandoned by its 10 man crew during a storm in Bermuda in 2018 while traveling from Greece to Haiti.

The ship wandered the seas for 16 months before settling off the coast of Cork.

Cork County Council decommissioned the ship, in that they searched and removed any dangerous or toxic substances that might have been on board and removed entry points, such as a ladder, to prevent people from attempting to explore the abandoned vessel.

However, no steps were taken to tow the ship to a harbour with the local authority citing cost as the main reason.

In recent months, storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin battered the coast of Cork with gusts of up to 110km per hour which appears to have substantially weakened the vessel until it could withstand no more.

The 44 year old cargo vessel is seen to have split, with the bow and stern separated and bits of the boat strewn on nearby rocks.