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Ice Prince sinks of Portland.

The Greek-registered Ice Prince went down about 26 miles (42km) off Portland Bill after shedding much of its load of nearly 5,260 tonnes of sawn timber.

A coastguard spokesman said the ship had sunk at about 0045 GMT on Tuesday after being monitored throughout the night by two tugs.

It isn't expected that any of the cargo or any pollution will reach the coast for a few days yet.

So no extra tourist attraction on our beaches this week.

Napoli all over again?

A year ago only a few people will have heard of the Napoli. Then it began to sink in the English Channel of the south coast of Devon. It was taken in tow but was in danger of sinking and it was run aground on to a beach a few miles from here. For a few days it was the most famous ship in the world as looters turned up to see what they could steal.Yesterday no one had heard of the Ice Prince but it too got into trouble in the Channel in bad weather. Yesterday evening the crew were rescued, some by helicopter and the rest by the Torbay Lifeboat, from the listing ship. The weather has shown no sign of improvement and there are serious concerns that the Ice Prince will sink. It has already lost over 5000 tons of deck cargo, mainly timber which is floating round out there in heavy seas and is just waiting for some scavenger to turn up and collect it, go for it boys, just like the Napoli last year.

Picture from a French news paper. I like taking photos but I'm not that mad.