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By John Feng and Jordan King
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A ship dubbed a "floating bomb" is anchored around 30 miles from a World War II wreck full of explosives off the coast of the England.
The Malta-flagged cargo ship Ruby, which set off from Russia's northern port of Kandalaksha carrying 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, is about 30 miles from where the SS Richard Montgomery, nicknamed the "Doomsday Wreck," sank while carrying 1,400 tonnes of bombs in 1944, Newsweek analysis shows.
Ruby has made headlines since it was asked to leave the Norwegian port of Tromsø in early September.
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It was originally headed for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands but after a storm it ended up seeking refuge in Tromsø, where police said it was "not desirable" for the ship to undergo repairs so close to the city.
Ruby has sustained damage to its hull, propeller and rudder. It also has expired seafarer employment agreements, and deficiencies regarding International Safety Management.
The crew has tried to dock to carry out repairs several times, but it has been turned away by NATO states, including Sweden, Lithuania and even its own flag state of Malta.
Ruby was anchored off the southeast coast of England, in the English Channel, as of Friday morning, according to marinetraffic.com. It is just over 30 miles from where the Montgomery went down, in the Thames Estuary near Sheerness and Southend-on-Sea in the counties of Kent and Essex, respectively.
Ruby's Maltese owner, Ruby Enterprise, its UAE-based manager, Serenity Ship Management and its insurers, which include the West of England Club, are currently working with British authorities to bring the ship into a port, they said in a statement to TradeWinds.
Last December, the U.K.'s Department of Transport brought forward plans to remove the SS Richard Montgomery's masts, which can still be seen poking above the water's surface, after a survey found severe "degradation."
Kent's local Medway Council has previously said an explosion on the SS Richard Montgomery could trigger a 1,000-foot wave, Britain's Metro reported.
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In 2022, Defence Research and Development Canada researchers told the New Scientist that the ship could be "one of the world's biggest non-nuclear explosions, causing widespread destruction and death."
Although the ammonium nitrate being carried by Ruby is technically a fertilizer component, its explosive nature was laid bare in 2020, when 2,750 tons of it exploded at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon, killing at least 218 people.
But Ruby's owner and manager have said the fears about the "floating bomb," as it has been called by British media, are unfounded.
They said media coverage has had a prejudicial effect on the vessel's ability to undertake routine operations to transfer the cargo to another ship so it can be repaired.
In a statement, they said that ammonium nitrate "is a commonly transported cargo by this method and poses no threat to the ship, crew or surrounding environment in the vessel's current state."
Newsweek has contacted the British Department of Transport and Serenity Ship Management for further comment.
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