IMO: 7220477
16,398 g.t. built in 1972 by Hakodate Dock Co. Ltd., Japan.
Owner: Chios Navigation Co., London.
Flag: Greek.
Seen entering London’s King George V Entrance Locks bound for the Royal Albert Dock on 24/10/82.
Renamed: Flame in 1987 and Flare in 1989.

Under the name Flare she tragically broke in two off St.-Pierre-et-Miquelon on 16/1/98.
She had left Rotterdam on 30/12/97 bound for Montreal in ballast and encountered severe storms during most of the Atlantic crossing. Due to the vessel’s water ballast being insufficient and incorrectly distributed she was trimmed very much down by the stern with a shallow forward draught, not even reaching her loading manual’s condition for a light ballast, let alone heavy ballast situation. This exacerbated the pounding on her forefoot and lead to the eventual catastrophic hull failure.
The stern section sunk within 30 minutes but the bow section remained afloat for four days before sinking off Nova Scotia. At one point the bows of a ship were seen coming towards them and it was thought that help was at hand. Imagine the horror when they discovered that it was actually the fore section of their own ship. The propeller was still turning and had caused the aft section to take an erratic course back to the remainder of the ship.
Sadly only 4 of her 25 crew members survived. Six of them managed to swim to the capsized port side lifeboat but two could not hang on long enough to be rescued in the icy conditions.