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GV Sea PAN TO dock stranded on rocks
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GV Superstructure of dock PAN TO people watching
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GV Waves crashing over dock
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GVs People looking at crack in dock superstructure (2 shots)
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GV Sea crashing over dock
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GV Crack in superstructure
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GV Waves crashing through holes in superstructure PAN TO rocks
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GVs Sea breaking over dock stranded on rocks (3 shots)
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Initials BB



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In France, a fifteen-thousand tonnes floating dock was wrecked by fierce storms off the coast of Brittany on Thursday (14 December). After it was driven on to the rocks of St. Guenole, the dock broke into three pieces.

SYNOPSIS: Here, in the westernmost region of France, the dock, called the Sima, lies stranded. It is an immense structure --- two hundred meters (656 feet) long, forty-five meters (147 feet) wide, and eighteen metres (91 feet) high -- too large to have withstood the fury of such a storm. People from the area gathered on the foreshore to watch its destruction.

After its support cables snapped, the Sima drifted into the Bay of Biscay, one of the most notoriously wild stretches of water in the world.

The dock was being towed to Chimbotte in Peru to go into service with the Peruvian merchant navy's industrial service. Before the vessel broke up, cracks ran across its superstructure, signalling disaster for the dock, which had been built in Oberhausen, West Germany. The Sima was carrying a Dutch crew, and no casualties were reported immediately. It was a late casualty in destructive storms that swept through the English Channel during the week.