Plea for full disclosure of container contents
RAY SMUTS
SHIP OWNERS’ determination to achieve rapid vessel turnaround is compromising global maritime safety. Vessels should in fact delay departure to properly rest crews, asserts the South African Maritime Safety Authority’s Captain Saleem Modak.
Speaking to FTW at the 13th annual meeting of the Maritime Accident International Investigators Forum last week - the first to be held in the Mother City and indeed on the African continent - Modak, principal officer for Samsa in Cape Town, pointed to two primary concerns. First the speed with which bulk cargo is loaded and discharged - in his view “an accident waiting to happen” - and also the global trend to misrepresent cargo weight/content on manifests.
He stressed that although rest breaks were mandatory for crews nowadays, the dramatic decrease in on-board manpower over the past ten or 15 years translated to significantly more output, intensified by the recent implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code. At the same time it raised the question whether this might not compromise necessary ship maintenance.
Modak’s message to ship owners/shippers of containerised cargo was clear: “We are certainly living in a containerised world so please disclose to the authorities exactly what you have.”
Incorrect disclosure, to his mind, was one of many factors which could come into play along with negligence, human error, vessel design faults and Acts of God.
The MAIIF get-together, in essence a global sharing of maritime accidents in order to draw from them to avoid repeat occurrences, heard of the October 2003 catastrophe aboard the container ship Sea Elegance off Durban, resulting in the loss of a crew member, when a 20-foot box containing highly flammable calcium hypochlorite caught fire and exploded.
The container was stowed below deck, adjacent to the engine room bulk head and a heated fuel tank, and although listed on the manifest, not so as hazardous cargo.
l The MAIIF meeting was attended by 50 delegates from 35 nations.
