Hoegh Osaka cargo ship aground on Bramble Bank in the Solent, in pictures
NIKON D610 (420mm, f/7.1, 1/500 sec, ISO400)
NIKON D610 (420mm, f/6.3, 1/640 sec, ISO400)
As most people tucked into their roasts on Sunday, the Hampshire Constabulary reported a strange phenomenon: car parks around Calshot, a peninsula down the coast from Southampton, were filling up as tourists flocked to the area to take a look at a stricken car carrier, which had been deliberately run aground.
The 51,000-tonne Höegh Osaka had begun to list dangerously shortly after it left port on Saturday night, and the pilot and master had taken the decision to beach it, in an effort to save its cargo.
Salvage engineers now think that a JCB excavator could have broken free from its restraints and dug a hole in the side of the ship gounded on a sandbank in the Solent.
