Cargo Ship “Thamesborg” Runs Aground in the Canadian Arctic
The 173-meter Dutch-flagged multipurpose vessel Thamesborg, operated by Wagenborg, ran aground in the Franklin Strait while sailing from Lianyungang, China, to Baie-Comeau, Canada, via the Northwest Passage. The crew was unharmed, and no pollution was reported. The vessel, carrying carbon blocks for industrial use, is ice-class 1A, designed to operate in first-year ice during summer and autumn. Canada’s Coast Guard deployed the icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier, which arrived at the site nine hours later to assist in refloating the vessel and assess potential damage.
The Northwest Passage remains a less frequently used alternative to Russia’s Northern Sea Route but offers significant savings — about 3,750 nautical miles shorter than the Panama Canal route, cutting transit time by up to 14 days and reducing CO₂ emissions by 40%. However, environmentalists warn that local emissions in the Arctic still threaten its fragile ecosystem. Wagenborg Shipping, a family-owned Dutch company founded in 1898 with a fleet of more than 180 vessels, has been a pioneer of Arctic navigation and first transited the Northwest Passage in 2016.