Battered Cape Town counts the cost

Port has never closed entirely, says Bremner Ray Smuts HELL HATH no fury like the once-in-50-years storm that went berserk off the Cape last week as howling winds and pelleting rain relentlessly and unforgivingly pounded the coastline, wreaking havoc on the local economy - shipping being a prime casualty - and bringing untold further misery to thousands. As eight vessels lay at anchor in Table Bay when this issue went to press on Monday morning, September 10, waiting either for general cargo or container berths, the harbour was returning to normality, one sign being a 100% occupancy at the fully-operational container terminal. (It accommodated five rather than the usual four vessels) Cape Town's port captain Eddie Bremner told FTW: "There has been no downtime, we've sort of kept the business going overnight and have allowed all to sail and some to dock." As to the bleak weather outlook, cold wet and windy weather with northwesterly winds of up to 55km/h, replaced on Wednesday by more rain and a "Black South Easter" wind reaching 70km/h in some places, Bremner said: "We should be able to continue working if things don't get worse." If things do deteriorate, as the weatherman predicts, it could adversely affect the frantic oil removal operation from the grounded ore carrier Ikan Tanda at Scarborough north of the Mother City. Work could only get underway on Saturday due to adverse weather including heavy ocean swells as oil was pumped to the Ocean Pride alongside and pipes laid from the stricken vessel to the shore, affording two transferral options. Once all the oil has been successfully removed, the plan is for the salvage tug John Ross to tow the Ikan Tanda to the Port of Cape Town for further assessment. September 5 will go down in Cape Town's history as Black Wednesday for not even veteran seadogs can recall worse in-port conditions, when wind speed measured 100km/h on average with gusts up to 150km/h. For the first time in many a year, two vessels were in real danger requiring helicopter evacuation of crews in addition to posing a potential oil pollution threat, this at a time when the memory of the sunken ore carrier Treasure, oil-saturated penguins and blackened beaches is still very real for many Capetonians. Bremner said the port had never closed entirely although larger vessels were most affected when ferocious winds made operations impossible. (The container terminal shuts down when winds exceed 80km/h) One of the vessels affected - and the first to be allowed to depart from the container terminal - was MSC's Antonia which sailed at 11:00 last Thursday - 48 hours late. Also storm-delayed, this time for about 29 hours, was P&O Nedlloyd's container vessel Heemskerck which snapped 12 of her lines and damaged her portside gangway, reports the line's operations manager for Southern Africa Peter Odendaal. High drama ensued on the seaward side of the container terminal at 03:00 on Wednesday when a daring helicopter pilot plucked 30 Chinese sailors from the bucking trawler Chia Ying 6 as it smashed repeatedly against the protective dolosse, rupturing her port bilges and diesel tanks. Two crew were injured and later hospitalised after desperately trying to leap from the vessel onto the dolosse.