Pretoria: 08 August 2024

Country of ship registration accountable for investigation

While the salvage team on the Panama-registered cargo vessel, the MV Ultra Galaxy, continue to hold their breath in prayer for, at minimum, a week-long ‘good weather window’ to prepare for extraction tons of the vessel’s remaining fuel and oil, getting to the bottom of why the now wrecked vessel ended up beached sideways on that west coast of South Africa, remains as much a priority.

That is according to the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) in confirmation that it has already begun assisting a Panama maritime authorities’ investigation of the incident that occured exactly a month ago this week, after the vessel was abandoned by its crew on the Atlantic Ocean, after it listed heavily, and eventually grounded a day later.

SAMSA Chief Operations Officer (COO) Mr Sobantu Tilayi, addressing an on-site national media briefing held on Friday at the coastal area of the vessel’s grounding, explained that in terms of international maritime laws and regulations, the obligation to investigate the cause of the vessel’s grounding lay with its country of registration – Panama – with SAMSA only providing such assistance as necessary and required.

To this end, Mr Tilayi confirmed that Panama maritime authorities had already launched the investigation, and that they’d be arriving in the country this past weekend, following their visit and interview of the 18-member crew of the casualty vessel, domiciled in the Philippines.

In the video below, Mr Tilayi fully explains the process of the investigation, and for further illumination, also delves, albeit briefly, on the role of South Africa’s Incident Management Organisation (IMOrg) and its relevance and significance to the country’s state of readiness for maritime incidents of the kind.

Salvage team on a wing and a prayer

With an investigation on the cause of the grounding of the MV Ultra Galaxy now formally underway, a salvage team from Smit Salvage South Africa led by Salvage Master, Mr Rudolph Punt; is ill at ease having to wait patiently, hoping for a good weather window of no less than a week at least, to be able to fully establish the presence of low-sulphur fuel and oils in the grounded vessel’s underside tanks for extraction.

In a brief chat with this SAMSA blog on the day of an on-site national media briefing last Friday, Mr Punt said unabating inclement weather in the location was a major hindrance to what he described as an elaborate process for effectively and successfully extracting the remaining tons of fuel and oil believed to be still on the casualty vessel.

With a Platform Ssupply Vessel alongside, he said, primarily, they needed to stabilize the now wrecked vessel, and then once having located fuel-laided tanks below, heat up the fuel and oils on board first, to about 50 degrees Celsius, prior to transfering it by pipes to the PSV – a extraction heating initial process lasting up to 48 hours, on average, at a time.

Shortly after arrival at the operations site two weeks ago, and with only one day of good weather since, he said the team managed to extract about eight (8) cubic meters of oil , and then the Cape of Storms lived up to its reputation at this time of the year, belting out a very windy and wet weather, giving rise to ocean waves of up to six (6) meters pounding the vessel at intervals of 15 seconds apart, at times.

As a result, on Saturday, 27 July, the vessel broke apart into four (4) pieces and in the process, two of its tanks – 1 & 2 got breached and tons of fuel and oil leaked onto the sea and beach alongside, for a spread of up to a kilometre.

For the full narrative by Mr Punt, inclusive of the salvage team’s preparedness for a ‘worst case scenario’ – click on the video below.

We came prepared: Spill Tech

With just over a kilometre of a remote coastal area densely splashed with tons of an oil and marine fuel, a Spill Tech environmental clean up team has had its hands full locating and removing the grounded vessel’s debris and spilled fuels and oil, confirmed the company’s Director for Environment, Mr Gareth Goosen a Friday ago.

It is a job, he said, they came fully prepared for even as they could not be certain of the scale, both in terms of debris and oil spill volumes as well as the geographic spread on land and at sea.

The high level of preparedness was evident at the site, with a range of equipment and vehicles spread and laid out for collection, containment and disposal of the grounded vessel’s debris and hardened oil and fuels, in addition to hard pieces of the vessel that chiselled off when it broke apart.

With the wintry stormy and wet weather on the South Africa Atlantic Ocean coastline this year giving little respite for weeks on end, Spill Tech, said Mr Goosen, came prepared for the worst-case situation as standard practice. For his account of the ordeal to date, click on the video below.

A lucky break worth millions of rand income in business and jobs opportunity for local community

The dreaded grounding, subsequent break-up and resultant oil and fuel spillage that has occurred on a remote part of South Africa’s west coast involving the Panama-registered general cargo vessel, the MV Ultra Galaxy, while sailing to Dar es Saalam in Tanzania up north-east on the Indian Ocean side of South Africa, could not have been anticipated by the Matzikama Local Municipal area community.

As such, the community could not have been prepared for it. However, when the call came from salvage and environmental clean up groups attending to the casualty vessel, the community immediately sprung into action, according to Spill Tech’s director for commercial and human resources, Mr Sibusiso Ngema.

According to Mr Ngema, within hours of the vessel breaking up and spewing some of its fuel and oils onto the coastal area adjacent, as many as 231 local people, 96% of whom are youth aged between 18-35 years, were located, engaged, and quickly converged on the scene, cleaning up the beach area.

In the event of more oil and fuel leaking out of the now broken up grounded vessel, an additional 400 has been booked already and on stand-by for a call-out, he said.

Ironically, in a cased he summarily described as illustrative of the adage: for every dark cloud, there is a silver lining; Mr Ngema said all of the people, especially the youth now engaged by Spill Tech in the clean-up, were unemployed.

He revealed that for the period since beginning of both the casualty vessel salvage work and oil and fuel oil spill clean-up – approximately three weeks – as much as R2-million had been spend in the Matzikama Municipal area in local procurement of consumables and labour.

With much expressed uncertainty as to how long the salvage operation will take, and unpredictable course it may take due to poor weather conditions and diffult terrain working conditions, the spend could increase for a while yet and in the process, yielding much needed employment income especially for the local, and generally unemployed youth. For the full story, click on the video below.

Worst-case scenario? There’s no such thing for ships insurers!

In terms of maritime incidents such as is currently being dealt with involving a grounded vessel on a remote area of South Africa’s west coast, some 300km northwest of Cape, “there is no such thing as a worst-case scenario,” stated the vessel owner’s insurance company representative, Mr Michael Heads, Managing Director of 2Oceans P&I Correspondents.

According to Mr Heads, ships insurers general expect and plan for exactly such situations, and as such, the MV Ultra Galaxy insurers came prepared for any eventuality regarding the condition of the vessel inclusive of its final removal, in whatever state, after retrieval of its cargo and fuels onboard.

For this and other of his views, click on the video below.

End.