Pretoria: 27 November 2024
Work on the removal of the last batch of loosened parts of the wreck of the fishing trawler, FV Elke M, that ran aground near St Francis Bay in the Eastern Cape in January 2024, has resumed, the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) confirmed at the weekend.
According to SAMSA, the removal of the loose steel parts of the vessel began on Thursday last week and continues this week.
Resumption of the work, halted since May 2024 due to a hostile wintry weather characterised by strong winds and huge waves along the Cape of Good Hope Ocean corridor, began last week following the completion an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) under Section 30 of National Environmetral Management Act (NEMA) by an expert environmentalist and scientist, Dr Warwick Sauer, of the faculty of Ichthyology and Fisheries Sciences at Rhodes University.
The EIA findings of Dr. Warwick, as reported by SAMSA, indicated that the reduced steel structural portion of the vessel, which was left on the coastline at Shark Point, near St. Francis Bay, had since firmly settled on the rocky shoreline at a much faster rate than had been anticipated. The steel was divided into three parts.
The grounding incident of FV Elke M, a Port Elizabeth registered 376-ton (gross) fishing trawler, measuring 33 meters in length and eight (8) meters wide, with a deadweight tonnage of some 194 tons, occurred on a late Saturday evening on 06 January 2024, on a rocky coastal area of the Cape coast in the Eastern Cape some two kilometres southeast of St Francis Bay.
Within hours of the incident, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) assisted in the secure evacuation of all 22 crew members aboard the vessel.
Salvage work was initiated shortly thereafter to reduce and remove the vessel’s 35 tons of marine fuel and approximately 2000 litres of lubricating oil. Subsequently, in May 2024, after additional evaluations of its disfigured and torn bare structure, which was divided into three sections, it was determined to be temporarily safe during the stormy winter months that began that month.
A further EIA was conducted in June 2024, followed by the most recent one on whose basis the first phase of the wreck removal has now started.
In the intervening period, according to the vessel owner’s insurance company, P&I representative, Mr Nick Sloane, to ensure safety of life and the nearby environment, a services provider procured by the vessel owner’s insurers remained posted to monitor the vessel remains’ condition.
The monitoring company also collected debris found in the area, and most of which, Mr Sloane said, did not emerge from the bare and broken structure of the FV Elke M. The vigilance would continue through to February 2025 by which period much of what remains of the wreck will possibly have been completely removed.
On Thursday, in the presence of SAMSA Southern Region Principal Officer, Mr Thandimfundo Mehlo, the wreck removal team utilised a helicopter to lift and dispose of loose steel parts of the wreck that were ripped off its skeletal structure by the pounding of sea waves during the winter months.
This blog chatted briefly with Mr Sloane to establish how far the work has gone, the challenges encountered as well as his impression on the state of readiness of South Africa’s maritime community for incidents of this nature. For his views, Click on the video below.
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