Stricken bulker gets overseas help

RAY SMUTS AN OVERSEAS salvage expert is on his way to South Africa to join the team attempting to salvage the log carrier Kiperousa, still stubbornly aground on a reef off Bhega near Hamburg, in the Eastern Cape. Sealink Marine of Piraeus, Greece, owners of the 14 921-ton vessel, have contracted international salvage company Tsavliris which has dispatched its Cape Town-based tug Nikolay Chiker - one of the most powerful in the world – to the appointed area where she arrived on the morning of June 9. Attempts to refloat the Kiperousa have thus far been unsuccessful. The vessel, en route from Gabon in West Africa, was on her way to Durban to take on bunkers (fuel oil) when the master put out a distress call on June7, resulting in the evacuation of all crew to East London.