A 35,000 ton vessel snapped in half after smashing against rocks of Gibraltar last week. The Liberian-registered “Fedra” had been dragging her anchor in a force 8 gale on Friday afternoon. Have you ever noticed that “Liberian-registered” vessels are often in the news for running aground, sinking, smuggling, dumping ballast water in restricted waters, breaking up and spilling tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil on pristine beaches? Have you ever wondered why some governmental body doesn’t do something about it?

Europa Point, at the south tip of Gibraltar, is often a lee shore and no place for a freighter to anchor.

Despite the earlier efforts of two tug boats to hold the ship clear of land its anchor broke and the stern of the vessel smashed. Defying extreme winds, a Spanish maritime rescue helicopter airlifted five men from the bow of the bulk carrier Fedra as it lay pinned by pounding waves at the base of cliffs in Gibraltar.

Every year freighters and tankers wash up on European shores, virtually all single-engine vessels.

But the savage weather played havoc with the helicopter’s engine, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing with men still left stranded on deck, according to maritime and transport news portal Lloyd's List.

Crew Almost Lost

In small groups throughout the night, Gibraltarian rescuers hauled up wet, shivering and terrified crew members. At one point, with 11 men still onboard, the operation had to be suspended as the storm intensified.

“We thought we were going to lose them,” one exhausted rescuer told Lloyd's List.

Rescue crews worked throughout the night to save stranded crew, most of whom were Filipino.

“But at around 7 AM, we had a small rest in the wind. We knew this was the only chance they had.”

By mid-Saturday morning the Fedra had been ripped apart by the sea, torn in two close to the crew's accommodation quarters. Both sections of the ship remained trapped against the cliffs, heaving and hammering violently in the pitching seas.

Liberia only recently restored law and order within its borders, but its ship registration rules are the weakest in the world – and that is truly saying something.

The men, mostly Filipino sailors, were treated in a hospital but were later released and taken to a local hotel.

The Fedra was 24 years old.