Liverpool-registered ships no longer make the news as much as they once did, but the 65,125dwt tanker Stena Primorsk managed to do just that in late December 2012 when she suffered a punctured outer hull on New York’s Hudson river and had to have nearly 12 million gallons of crude oil removed.
Built in 2006 for Sweden’s Stena Group, the 182m by 40m ship had just left the Port of Albany, New York bound for Saint John, Canada when she either grounded or hit a submerged object downriver from Albany. The incident caused the ship’s outer hull to be breached, but the inner hull remained intact, preventing an oil spill that could have fouled the Hudson for miles and caused considerable damage.
By early January the ship’s cargo of crude had been offloaded, allowing the empty tanker to continue on to Bayonne, New Jersey for drydocking and full repairs. JS
