Holed bulker ordered out of SA waters

RAY SMUTS
DISQUIETING EVIDENCE of further structural damage to the hull of the
holed Taiwanese bulk carrier Cape Africa
has prompted the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) to order her removal from South African waters
within a month.
“Slowly, we are finding more and more damage so we have ordered temporary repairs and for her to be towed away at
the end of the month,” Samsa’s executive manager, operations, Captain Bill Dernier, told FTW.
The 13-year-old 150 000-ton vessel
was on her way from Brazil to Japan with
a load of iron ore when she reported to the authorities in the port of Cape Town that
a hole had been discovered in the number three hold, initially thought to have been fairly small but on further inspection revealed to be a gaping 20 metres.
The latest bad news which necessitated Dernier’s ‘removal in a month’ instruction to law firm Shepstone and Wyllie - representing the Cape Africa’s owners - is that the portside frames in the number four hold have ‘tripped’, which means they
are no longer in a vertical position against the plating but lying parallel. This will necessitate fitting a second cofferdam without which welding cannot proceed.
As to the danger posed by the vessel
in her current state, Dernier says: “There
is a threat all the time; that is why we are so anxious. She could sink as we speak.”
Salvage expert Godfrey Needham of Offshore Maritime says the problem of ‘flexing’ frames in the number four hold carries the risk of hull failure or water ingress. “If number four should go then
I reckon the vessel will break.”
Needham is not about to hazard a
guess regarding the salvage bill thus far save to say it is “hugely costly”, involving the salvage tug Smit Amandla, the Russian tug Nikolay Chiker, the Antarctic vessel
SA Agulhas, several anti-pollution vessels, helicopters and a team of at least
40 working 24 hours around the clock.
He believes the decision to repair the Cape Africa at sea, a process that could
take at least a month, was no doubt prompted by the burgeoning bulk
carrier market.