Ex - SS Sea Witch (Baltimore)

Built in 1968 as a commercial container vessel at Bath Iron Works for the American Export Isbrandtsen Lines, the Sea Witch served the commercial trades for a brief 4 years before she met a disasterous end in New York Harbor.

On May 30, 1973, just after midnite, the Sea Witch had departed Howland Hook Terminal on Staten Island, NY and was outbound through the Verrezano Narrows when her steering system failed in mid-turn and the ship began to head directly for the anchored Oil Tanker SS Esso Brussels. Unable to control the ship and moving too quickly to stop in time, the Sea Witch plowed into the Esso Brussels, piercing 3 of her cargo tanks and starting an enormous fire.

Both ships locked together and became one enormous inferno, with the oil from the Esso Brussels and the volatile cargo in the containers of the Sea Witch providing more than enough fuel to keep the ships burning well into the next week. The Sea Witch lost 2 of her crew in the accident, and the Esso Brussels lost 13.

Following the accident, the burnt out hull of the Sea Witch was docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard awaiting disposition. Eventually, the stern section containing the engine was bought by a American Shipbuilder and was cut from the hull at Newport News and used in the construction of a Chemical tanker, the Chemical Pioneer, which still sails today.

The heavily damaged bow section was brought here to the former Kurt Iron and Metal Co where it was mostly scrapped, aside from the ballast tanks which were used to store waste oils and fuels from other ships scrapped at the site. After Kurt Iron and Metal went out of business, the hull remained onsite, partially filled with waste oil and posing a potential environmental disaster in the making. The forward hull section was subsequently salvaged by Resolve Marine Group in the summer of 2008, who raised the bow from the mud, pumped out the waste oil and sold the hulk for scrapping.

www.resolvemarinegroup.com/?q=node/80