A conro vessel owned by Grimaldi Group has been aground off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula since Saturday, according to a claims consultant and ship-tracking data.
The 47,200-gt Grande Senegal (built 2010), a combination container ship and ro-ro operated by Grimaldi Deep Sea, ran aground on a reef on Saturday about 35 nautical miles west of Progreso, Mexico, according to reports received by cargo claims consultant WK Webster.
The Italian-flagged ship was still grounded at that location as of 11am local time (17:00 GMT) on Wednesday, tracking data from VesselsValue showed.
Salvors have responded to the ship under the terms of a Lloyd’s Open Form salvage agreement after a tugboat was unable to free it, so Grimaldi and the cargo owners may need to pay salvage and recovery costs, WK Webster said.
The consultant said cargo owners may also have to pay general average costs before the cargo is delivered to its destination.
Calls to Grimaldi were not immediately returned.
The ship, which is insured by NorthStandard, was destined for Mexico’s Port of Altamira and the US Port of Brunswick, New Jersey.
This grounding occurred about two weeks after a ro-ro vessel operated by Grimaldi Deep Sea caught fire on 5 July while berthed in the Port of Newark, New Jersey.
The fire started at about 9:30pm local time (01:30 GMT) aboard Grimaldi Deep Sea’s 3,950-lane-metre Grande Costa d’Avorio (built in 2011) while vehicles and containers were getting loaded onto the ship.
The fire, which resulted in the death of two Newark firefighters, was not fully extinguished until 11 July.
The US Coast Guard and federal investigators are investigating the cause of the fire while it remains berthed at the Port of Newark.
That blaze came three years after a car carrier being chartered by Grimaldi Deep Sea — the 4,900-ceu Hoegh Xiamen (built 2012) — caught on fire while off Blount Island in Jacksonville, Florida, on 4 June 2020.
That fire, which was caused by an explosion, resulted in injuries to 11 firefighters who filed a still-active lawsuit against Hoegh Autoliners and Grimaldi Deep Sea in October 2020.
