Volvox Terranova is 160 meters long, displaces nearly 20,000 tons of water, and travels at 17 knots. Nope, it’s not a new (giant) species. Volvox Terranova is a ship, a hopper dredger sailing under the flag of Netherlands.

Volvox Terranova. Image from marineportconsultancy.com.

The ship was recently damaged by a powerful blast from an old sea mine. From Dredging News Online:

As the blast wave of the sea mine was very powerful, damage was caused throughout the ship.

The article doesn’t include any mention of whether or not people were hurt in the incident. She [do we still call ships she?] has now been repaired:

…Bakker Sliedrecht inspected the entire electrical system from power generation to power distribution. All damaged components were repaired to restore this system. A whole new main switchboard was assembled in the workshop of Bakker Sliedrecht and installed on board the ship. The cable ducts and cabling were also renewed.

Just because I can, here’s the ship’s current position from vesselfinder.com:


As I write this, the ship’s position is two and a half months out of date, probably because of the damage and repairs. Hopefully it will be updated soon.

Add Volvox the ship to the list of non-algal uses of “Volvox“, along with Volvox the game, Volvox the art gallery, and DJ Volvox.