A veteran in the abnormal load and project cargo industry, Carl Webb, MD of Project Logistics Management (PLM), has been a bit of a Jonah in the last couple of weeks as far as the heavy-lift shipping industry is concerned. Webb was the first to phone FTW early last week with the news that the SA-bound, 12 744- tonne deadweight (dwt) heavy-lift dry cargo ship Beluga Fortune had been hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast. And the reason he was alerted to this piece of hot news was because he’d just been offloading a project cargo from the sister ship, Beluga Fantasy at Richards Bay. And the Beluga Fortune was also bound for RB with a consignment of project cargo from the United Arab Emirates. Not content to stop there, Webb again phoned FTW last Thursday morning to tell us that he was standing at Durban’s Pier 3 alongside the German-owned heavy-lift ship, Scan Brasil. And, he told FTW, he had heard that the sheriff of the court had been aboard her in the early hours – with orders to arrest the ship in lieu of unpaid debts. The Beluga Fortune saga started in the early hours of Sunday, October 24. On the emergency airwaves, the captain of the Beluga Fortune reported his ship was under attack by pirates 750 nautical miles (1 387 kilometres) off the Somali coast. According to Internet reports, the captain then reported that the pirates were on board and he and his crew were locked in the ship’s ‘citadel’ (panic room) – from where they were able to shut down the engines, cut off fuel and disable the bridge controls. On Sunday afternoon, an EU Navfor (naval force) maritime patrol aircraft was despatched to the area of the incident and reported sighting individuals on board but was unable to establish contact with the crew. The Royal Navy warship HMS Montrose, operating under NATO’s naval force and the closest to the incident, headed towards the vessel. As it closed with the captured ship the following day, the pirates set fire to part of the superstructure and immediately abandoned the ship. “A team of Royal Marines from HMS Montrose boarded the vessel and released the crew from the safe room,” said a NATO release. “None of them were injured.” The vessel, which had suffered only a little damage, then resumed her voyage to Richards Bay. The Scan Brasil story, however, doesn’t have such a good ending. From proudly boasting about the quality of its ships and services just a month ago, Hamburg owner Scanscot Shipping Services, has sunk into despondency. “Made in Germany” will continue to guarantee product quality even in the future and is consequently an obligation – even for the logistic service provider Scanscot, said MD Michael W. von Brauchitsch in a recent undated press statement. But within weeks, the Hamburg owner and two of its one-ship companies had filed for insolvency – with MD Von Brauchitsch blaming the move on the KfW banking group, which refused to support a restructuring, according to Lloyds List. And, in its October 20 edition, Fairplay Shipping News said: “German project and heavy-lift operator Scanscot has become the first casualty of the slump in the project freight markets. The Hamburg company, which operates nine owned multipurpose vessels plus charter tonnage, filed for insolvency last week after it defaulted on ship mortgage loans for two new buildings.” The 9 500-tonne deadweight (dwt) Scan Britania and Scan Espana, both fitted with cranes for tandem lifts up to 700-tonnes, were delivered to Scanscot from the former Hegemann shipyard group in late 2009 and early 2010. The lender, German state development bank KfW, decided to foreclose on the vessels after it became clear that freight revenues would not cover interest and principal for another year. MD Von Brauchitsch told Fairplay that freight rates for project and heavy lift cargoes had dropped by 30-50% from the 2008 highs – because of project delays and cancellations during the financial markets crisis. At the same time, supply-side pressure is continuing to grow due to record deliveries of heavy-lift vessels after the ordering spree of 2006-8. “The market is under extreme pressure and we cannot disengage ourselves from the market,” Von Brauchitsch pointed out. Scanscot would honour its freight contracts for the remaining five vessels, but it was too early say whether the company would manage to re-emerge from administration, he added. But only a week later, on Thursday October 28, handcuffs were attached to another of the Scanscot vessels – Scan Brasil – as she berthed at Durban’s Pier 3, and the sheriff boarded the vessel in the early hours and arrested her. Since then there has been quite a flock of creditors crawling all round the case of the Scan Brasil with at least two other mortgages due on her, and other creditors and their Durban attorneys also looking to attach the vessel.
