Two Bows, One Embankment: The Ghent-Terneuzen Groundings of August 2025
Twice in August, ships ran their bows into the mud embankment of the Ghent-Terneuzen canal in the Netherlands. Same stretch of water, same failure mode, three weeks apart. Both crews reported losing control of the rudder 1, and in a canal that kind of failure leaves you seconds, not minutes.
On the evening of Thursday, August 20, the Irish-registered general cargo ship Arklow Falcon, 90 metres long and 4,972 deadweight tonnes, was inbound for Ghent, Belgium 1. Around 6:45 p.m. local time, near Terneuzen, she lost control of her rudder, veered off course, and drove her bow into the embankment at an angle to the shipping lane 1. The reporting doesn't say whether she was laden or what speed she was carrying.
Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch water authority, was notified and had a Multraship tug and a patrol boat on scene by 7:15 p.m. 1 Within the hour the ship backed off the embankment under the tug's assistance and was escorted to anchorage for inspection. No injuries, no serious damage, according to Rijkswaterstaat 1, which is now investigating this grounding alongside the one that came before it 1.
That earlier incident, on August 7, cost more. The DFDS RoRo Primula Seaways, 200 metres long and 14,000 dwt, arriving from Gothenburg, Sweden, lost control near Terneuzen and put her bow into the same embankment 1. She stayed stuck for three hours before tugs pulled her free 1. The bow was damaged, and so was the rock and earthwork lining the canal bank 1.
Neither cause has been published yet. The Ghent-Terneuzen canal is a busy commercial link between the port of Ghent and the Westerschelde estuary, and it doesn't leave much room for a steering casualty to develop before it becomes a grounding. Open water gives you sea room to diagnose a rudder problem and correct it; a canal gives you an embankment, usually within a ship length or two.
Two groundings in the same stretch of water in the same month, both linked in early reporting to loss of steering control 1, is reason enough to look hard at steering gear tests and changeover procedures between autopilot and manual or emergency steering before entering confined water.
The emergency steering drill needs to be second nature. In the Arklow Falcon case, the gap between losing control and hitting the bank appears to have been too short for the crew to correct course 1. If the emergency procedure involves a phone call, a walk to the steering flat, and manual wheel engagement, that sequence has to be rehearsed until nobody loses time working out who does what.
Rijkswaterstaat is still investigating both groundings 1, which means even the authority hasn't pinned down a common cause yet. Officers transiting the same stretch in the meantime should brief as though the question is still open, and keep tug options and abort points fresh in the passage plan rather than assuming the answer will arrive before their next trip through.
A routine transit becomes a salvage job fast. The Primula Seaways sat aground for three hours before tugs freed her, with damage to her bow and to the canal bank 1. Mooring and towing gear readiness, and knowing your own vessel's tug connection points, matter well before a ship reaches port, not just after.
For now, the working detail worth carrying onto the bridge is the timeline itself: seven minutes from Rijkswaterstaat's notification to a tug alongside the Arklow Falcon 1, against three hours before the Primula Seaways came free three weeks earlier 1.