WITH between 400 and 500 shipping movements a day, the Channel is one of the busiest - and most dangerous - sea corridors in the world.
That a stricken vessel could be hit by another tanker just 48 hours after sinking was disturbing. That the same wreck could be struck yet again seemed unthinkable.
And yet at 7:30pm last night that is exactly what happened when the Turkish-regist
ered Vicky collided with the Tricolor, which has been marooned on the seabed in relatively shallow water off the French coast since 14 December.
Although it was not immediately clear whether the Vicky’s cargo of highly flammable kerosene was in danger of polluting the waters which separate Britain and France, questions about the French authorities’ handling of the salvage of the Tricolor will almost certainly be asked.
The Norwegian vessel sank in French waters after colliding with another cargo freighter, Kariba, and its container load of brand new luxury cars was lost.
Less than 48 hours later, the Dutch Antilles-registered cargo ship, Nicola, hit the Tricolor. Its crew, en route from La Coruna in northern Spain to Rotterdam, were not hurt and the vessel was floated away from the Tricolor at high tide.
The maritime union NUMAST described that second collision in December as a "stunning" breach of safety regulations and said the French should have done more to mark out the location of the Tricolor.
Andrew Linington, a spokesman, said cost-cutting by ship owners and poor crew training had made a disaster in the Channel a matter of "when" rather than "if".
It has still not been established why the Nicola hit the Tricolor, but Mr Linington said research commissioned by the government had found that 80 per cent of near-misses were due to human error. In the case of actual collisions, the figure is up to 95 per cent.
Safety experts monitoring just one section of the Channel over 24 hours recently recorded 68 near-misses involving large ships out of 257 ship movements.
The Channel is the busiest commercial sea lane in the world, with up to 500 vessels of using it each day. There are also hundreds of pleasure vessels and yachts.
Mr Linington said the dangers were growing by the day.
He said: "We have to look at how shipowners are sacrificing competent crews for cheap crews. Crew costs take up a vast part of running costs, and owners are constantly looking at ways to cut back costs.
"It is only a matter of time before we see a similar accident involving a passenger ferry."
The incident comes after just two weeks after the Spanish authorities revealed that a third slick from the sunken tanker Prestige, from which oil has been leaking, had reached the shores of north-west Spain.
Fresh patches of oil have been found along parts of the Galician coastline where earlier slicks had hit. But Spanish officials hope that attempts to seal the leaking wreck on the seabed might be successful.
The ageing, single-hulled tanker broke in two and sank in November, and is so far estimated to have lost about a quarter of its cargo of heavy fuel oil.
The Spanish government has faced strong criticism for its handling of the crisis, including the decision to tow the tanker further out before it sank.
The move was designed to protect the coastline, but meant the ship finally sank in 12,000ft of water, turning attempts to deal with the massive quantity of oil still on board into a technical nightmare.
The Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, has accepted mistakes may have been made.
International organisations are working to phase out single hulled tankers, but large numbers are still in service.
Under EU legislation drawn up after a 1999 oil spill, tankers more than 25 years old will not be allowed to trade in Europe after 2005.
In April 2001 the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) decided single-hulled tankers built in 1973 or earlier should be withdrawn by 2007, and more recent ones by 2015.
The Vicky is also single-hulled, but is double-bottomed and built in 1981.
Lloyds Marine Intelligence estimates that 52 per cent of tankers of more than 10,000 tonnes currently in operation are single-hulled.
Shipping lanes vary in depth between 150 and 600ft. High tide can add 20ft to those depths. Average draft - the amount of the vessel below the water line - for a cargo ship is 35-40ft.
