I heard a rumor

painful to see

Any captains here familiar with that area?Any potentially foregivable reason that this could happen short of a hurricane? Or are we looking at drinking and driving on a grand scale?

not much press on it so far
http://www.france24.com/france24Pub...p-news.html?id=070520112224.bn5mal1k&cat=null

she was on the AIS before http://aisserver.yachtmarine.com/EU-CANNES.html
but havent seen her lately

I love the smell of (diesel) in the mornings...

This Monday morning, I was driving into Cannes from the west along the coastal road. The smell of "diesel" coming off the sea was immediately apparent. Two whole days after the minor spill from the Lady Moura, it actually smelt like I was on the forecourt of a service station filling the tank (yes, I drive a diesel). If you were to open techmati's 2nd link above, which opens a google / ais map of the immediate area:

1) click on the "HYBRID" view,
2) then click on the "-" to zoom out, twice,

...you'll see at the extreme left edge an airfield (Cannes-Mandelieu airport) and the coastal road "Bd du Midi" going into Cannes, that's where I was when I got "the whiff". The beaches were not closed, there were quite a few people on the beach though very few in the water. And just offshore between 50-100m, a multitude of small unidentified boats that appeared to be just churning up the water like some 14 year old delinquent doing wheelies on a stolen moped late at night...?! Further on, I actually saw "a few people spraying stuff" along the waterline, a few metres away from people sunbathing.

It's obviously nothing for locals, ordinary tourists or even the VIPs attending the Cannes Film Festival to be concerned about. I should also say that the sea today appeared to exude an even deeper "sheen" than what is common on the Cote d'Azur normally. It was probably just an optical illusion, I tend not to drink until I'm finished for the day, so perhaps it was just the effect of the Scotch I'd consummed the previous day. Otherwise, you might start to get the impression that the local authorities were doing their ****dest to minimise the situation for reasons which presently escape me.

Whilst I'm on the subject of Scotch, ships and seafarers and the consumption of alcohol at sea in general: it struck me that Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II and her predecessors have always had a more tolerant attitude towards the availability of alcoholic beverages aboard. Compared to say, US Navy vessels which are apparently completely dry, alcohol being verbotten except for medicinal purposes. As we all know by now, running a completely "dry ship" did not save the US Navy from one of its' greatest ever embarassments when one of its' most advanced warships the USS Montana, under the command of Capt. Hancock, almost collided with a lighthouse. Thanks for your indulgence, and please accept my apologies for straying away from the subject immediately at hand.

Coming back to the Lady Moura incident, I wonder just what quantity of diesel might have escaped from the punctured tank/s? I recall that a 55m motor yacht I once worked aboard had a total capacity of 180,000 litres, the largest tank holding about 100,000 litres. Unlike the latest "double-hulled" tankers with a void space between the outer hull and the actual fuel tanks, most yachts I know of still only claim to have a "double-bottom", in the sense that the yacht's fuel (and other) tanks are what serve as "protection" against what might become a catastrophic flooding of vital spaces leading to "the loss of the yacht".

When you consider the number of (large) yachts that frequent extremely environmentally-sensitive cruising areas around the globe, perhaps it's time that today's yachts also need to be "double-hulled", just like modern oil tankers are required to be?! Or perhaps we should just instigate "US Navy" measures to all flags...?!