The Shipwreck of RMS Mülheim
2020 was certainly a difficult and disappointing year, but one of the few highlights was my solo road trip to the South West of England, an area of the country I had hardly been to before. Due to this it made sense to head down to one of the most famous tourist attractions - Land’s End. After deciding I didn’t need to buy a pasty shaped pillow from the gift shop or queue to spend a worrying large sum of money to have my picture taken next to signpost – I decided I walk part of the coastal path which resulted in a mighty, unexpected, surprise.
Looking from the cliff top I could see a huge shipwreck lying in a cove and mostly on land. Normally most shipwrecks are deep below water where you can’t see them, or what is on shore is just a few small fragments hardly worth investigating. This was really something else and, even better, there was a way to get down to have a closer look. I wasn’t an opportunity I was going to miss, but you might be wondering what ship is this? and how did it get there?
Originally called ‘Zeus’, it was built at the Tulcea shipyard in Romania where it was launched in May 1999 before being renamed as RMS Mülheim shortly after. At almost 90m in length and a beam of over 11m, it was a large cargo ship capable of carrying 130 TEU (130, 6.1m long shipping containers). In March 2003 it was carrying 2,200 tonnes of scrap car plastic from Ireland to Germany where an accident that wouldn’t look out of place in a cartoon happened. Despite having decent visibility, the Chief Officer caught his trousers in the wheelhouse as he stood up, falling over, and knocking himself unconscious. When he came to it was already too late, as the ship was much closer to the shore than it ever should have been and ran aground shortly after. The six crewmen were rescued by the Royal Navy and a two-month long salvage operation followed to clean up as much cargo as possible. Due to the ship’s location, it was deemed too dangerous to remove and so has been left in place ever since – slowly disintegrating through wave and storm action.
Getting down the slope wasn’t too difficult, but it is steep, and I was glad to have worn appropriate footwear. There’s less than half the original ship left, and large pieces of metal are strewn everywhere as you approached. Thankfully weathering and erosion has removed most of the sharp edges. Still, you had to be careful as any trip or fall was bound to be painful and you had that steep slope to traverse back up to return to the path.
Getting onto the ship was more difficult than I expected, the deck is tilted at about 45° or more and is very smooth and slippy from the constant barrages of salt water it receives. Hauling yourself up by using the railings made things a bit easier and once you got around the corner it wasn’t as difficult to stand up. There was a door propped open by a large piece of wood, but whilst there were a few braver than me who entered, I decided that was a risk too far. Knowing my luck, I’d knock the wood and the door would slam behind me! The colouration of the rusting metal was incredible, a deep mix of oranges, reds and yellows mixed in places by the green of algae that clung to the side. Despite the amount of rust much of it is still pretty solid and there weren’t any moments where it felt like the metal was going to give way under my feet.
It’s hard to estimate how much longer this wreck will be here, as there is less and less with each passing year. So, for that I’m glad to have been able to explore it whilst a lot of it was still left. It certainly made for quite the unexpected adventure during a year when adventures were few and far between.
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