Crew rescued from oil rig in heavy swells

RAY SMUTS ANXIETY GAVE way to relief when a fleet of helicopters airlifted the crew of a giant oil rig, Pride South Sea, that suddenly started tilting dangerously toward the ocean surface soon after her arrival off the Mossel Bay coast. News of the mishap only became public last Tuesday (August 16) but the drama unfolded two days earlier in heavy swells, estimated by a crew member at between ten and 15 metres. At 14:00, soon after her arrival and with the anchor not even down yet, the crew felt the rig’s instability as it tilted 16 degrees within a mere five minutes. A vessel alarm sounded two hours later, the same time an emergency call was dispatched to the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa). One crew member says the tilt was so pronounced it was impossible to walk against the platform while the lifeboat hung only 18 meters above the waterline. By 19:00 several CHC helicopters had arrived to airlift the majority of the 97 crew, a mix of South Africans, French, Americans and Britons, to safety. By the following afternoon the rig’s tilt stood at only 2% but stormy seas made it impossible for divers to inspect the vessel to determine whether repairs could be effected on site 120km south of Mossel Bay or whether she needed to return to the port of Cape Town. On charter to PetroSA, the 28-year-old had only left the Mother City Port a few days earlier after an extensive refit. A regular caller to Cape Town, the Pride South Seas provided drama of another kind five years ago when she broke her moorings in a heavy south-easter in Table Bay harbour, colliding with a number of vessels - one of them a P&O Nedlloyd containership – and a quayside crane, leading to claims of almost R30 million by port authorities and others against the rig’s owners.