Public warned away from MV Alta, which ran aground on Cork coast during Storm Dennis //

Abandoned by its crew, the cargo vessel made a lonely odyssey across the Atlantic, a ghost ship seemingly destined never to make port.

The 77-metre MV Alta drifted for over a year, skirting the Americas, Africa and Europe, rusting and derelict yet resolutely afloat.

Its voyage came to an end during Storm Dennis on Sunday when it ran aground near Ballycotton, a fishing village in County Cork, Ireland, overlooking the Celtic Sea. The Alta wedged itself on to rocks, apparently intact. //

Built in 1976, the Alta was flagged in Tanzania, changed owner in 2017 and was sailing from Greece to Haiti in September 2018 when it become disabled about 1,380 miles (2,220km) south-east of Bermuda.

Unable to make repairs, the 10-strong crew was rescued by the US coastguard cutter Confidence, which brought the crew members to Puerto Rico. According to gCaptain, a maritime industry news site, the US coastguard contacted the ship’s owner to arrange a commercial tug to tow it to shore.

It was reportedly towed to Guyana only to be hijacked, with its subsequent fate unclear until August 2019 when a Royal Navy ice patrol ship, HMS Protector, encountered it in the mid-Atlantic, apparently unmanned.