Grounded ore carrier refloated off Saldanha

A Chinese ore carrier, MV Long Charity, was successfully refloated on Sunday (August 2), less than 48 hours after running aground off the port of Saldanha. Fine weather greatly eased what could have been a trickier situation, said NPA port manager Eugene Kearns and his joint operations team. The 93 000 gross tonne vessel (174 004 metric tonnes dwt) had just sailed from the port, fully laden for destinations in Asia, when an engine breakdown caused her to run bow-first onto a reef at Marcus Island Breakwater, a stone’s throw from the port. Saldanha’s four tugs were called to hold the vessel in position while assistance was sought from Svitzer Marine Salvage and Smit Amandla Marine. The crew succeeded in restarting the engines shortly after the incident, a salvage inspection revealing the vessel had sustained damage to front seawater ballast tanks. On Sunday afternoon at high tide she was refloated from the marine-protected reef, what Kearns describes as a relatively quick operation. No pollution was detected, the 34-member crew safe and the vessel at inner anchorage pending a further decision. The mishap is the first involving a large vessel at Saldanha in more than a decade. The West coast has had its share of fishing boat and small vessel groundings. South Africa’s only iron ore export port, the two-berth Saldanha iron ore terminal handles an average of 20 to 25 ore carriers a month, for a collective four million tonnes. Enquiries have been mounted by various bodies, including National Ports Authority and the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa).