Reporting on the Hoegh Osaka

I can’t believe it’s a year to the day that we had the call from Channel 4 News to take a presenter and film crew out to see the beached Hoegh Osaka in the middle of the Solent. We discussed the options and boats available and they decided on a 6.8 meter Rib for their media Rib Charter.

A few hours later and we were departing Ocean Village marina. After a full safety briefing, the crew outlined what they wanted to achieve from the media charter and we headed down Southampton water and out onto the Solent.

No one on board had any idea of how the beached vessel might look. As we joined the top of Southampton water, there she was. A colossal block of 179 meters lying on her side, bottom exposed, resting perilously against Bramble Bank! We maneuvered past Calshot spit, taking in the whole vessel, as I briefed the television crew on what the vessel’s passage would have been. Moments later the crew began filming some long shots before we moved in for some close ups. An exclusion zone had been set up around the vessel but with permission from the harbor launch we managed to get a little closer for a piece of live filming with channel four correspondent Alex Thomson. With the footage shot, we returned to the Marina and the crew made their way back to London, just in time for the piece to appear on the channel four seven o’clock news.

The beauty of boating, is that every day is different.