60-strong workforce begins Agulhas salvage operation

RAY SMUTS
Mammoet Salvage pipped the remaining three contenders for the salvage of the Agulhas - Smit Salvage, Wijsmuller and Triton - to the post in an inexplicably lengthy tender process. The award was to have been announced in early August. The winning tender quote is not known, nor is the vessel’s insured value, but German market sources have valued her loss at US$31.5 million. However, Cape Town salvage expert Godfrey Needham says no company is going to bid at a price if there is no money in it for them, on top of which high risk is obviously involved as is the need for specialised equipment. “This operation will take place in an uncontrollable environment, unlike Indian breaker yards where ships are scrapped on the beach.” Martijn Kuipers, MD of Mammoet Southern Africa, tells FTW the group’s core business worldwide is heavy lifting and transport of oversize objects. One of its local projects was the off-loading and positioning of three new cranes in the port of Durban. The East London salvage operation, in which Mammoet Southern Africa will play an important role by virtue of supplying much of the equipment, will involve the positioning of four large cranes on the shore, from where they will lift the dismantled steel plating for scrap sale. A 60-member workforce, including divers, will be employed and Kuipers says 230 days have been allowed to complete the job, which got under way on Monday (October 16). The ten-year-old, Liberian-registered Safmarine Agulhas, on charter from operators F A Vinnen and Co.GmbH, was deployed on Safmarine’s Europe/South Africa intermediate service. She was bound for Durban with 469 loaded and 112 empty containers on June 26 when her engines apparently failed and she ran aground near the western breakwater. Several attempts by Smit Salvage to pull her free proved unsuccessful. Some 100 containers still remain in two flooded holds.