Marine

Citation

(2007), "Marine", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 16 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2007.07316bac.001

Marine

30 September 2005 Satsung (Panama)

A tug and her 12 crew have disappeared without trace while towing a bulk carrier to a breakers yards in India. The bulker has been found drifting in the Indian Ocean, her tow wire hanging down into the sea. However, there is no sign of the tug or her crew. Salvage tug Jupiter 6 sailed from Walvis Bay at the end of August, towing the 16,000-ton bulk Satsang to India for scrapping. The tug and her charge had spent four weeks at Walvis Bay for repairs to the tug’s props and engines. The Jupiter 6 and the Satsang had originally set sail from Cuba. Then, after leaving Walvis Bay, both ships disappeared. No radio contact could be made with the Jupiter 6 and no ship on the busy sea-lanes around the Cape reported seeing the two vessels. But, on Monday, bulk Poseidon spotted the Satsang drifting dead in the water about 250 miles south of Port Elizabeth. A South African tug is currently steaming to the bulker to pick up the tow and bring her under control, to prevent her from becoming a danger to shipping, and to search for clues to what really happened. The salvage tug Smit Amandla is expected to reach the “dead” ship tomorrow, said David Main of Smit Marine South Africa. He explained how a bulk carrier sailing from Durban at the weekend had come across the Satsang. “The master of the bulk carrier reported that the tow wire was hanging down into the water and that there was no sign of life. He reported her position,” Main said. “We will probably send an aircraft to find her again because she would have drifted away from the position supplied by the bulk carrier over the past few days. When we get to her, we hope to find some indication of what might have happened to her and the tug that was towing her.” They plan to bring the Satsang closer to shore and “hold” her until a new towing arrangement is made. “We won’t be towing her to India with the Amandla. That is not the Amandla’s business. The Satsang will have no power, so we will have to put people aboard to connect a tow. Indications are that there is an emergency tow connection. The master of the Poseidon reported that the two anchor chains of the Satsang were both connected to a tow wire hanging into the sea. We obviously don’t know whether there is seven metres of tow wire on it, or 700m. We will just have to wait and see,” said Main.

3 October 2005. Vessels have been asked to be on full alert for a tug (salvage tug Jupiter 6), with about 13 people on board, after it went missing early last month while towing a disused bulk carrier to a scrap yard in India. Bulk Satsang, which had presumably been adrift since then, was spotted 220 miles off Port Elizabeth by a passing vessel last week and had drifted even closer to the coast by yesterday. The Smit salvage tug Smit Amandla was dispatched from Durban harbour on Thursday afternoon (29 September) after being contracted to find the drifting bulk carrier and take it under tow. Smit spokeswoman Clare Gomes said the bulk carrier was found 165 miles south of Port Elizabeth yesterday, but that bad weather had prevented them from boarding it. The Smit Amandla would stay at the location and observe the carrier until the weather improved. An official at the maritime rescue and co-ordination centre in Cape Town said they were aware of the missing tug but did not have any details. South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) acting operations manager Saleem Modak said they believed there were 13 crew members on board the missing tug. “All ships have to report to the owners regularly,” said Modak. He said the tug had last reported to its owners on 5 September and an alert had been put out to other vessels to be on the lookout for the vessel. Modak said Samsa could not speculate on what could have happened to the tug. “We have no idea where it is. We are searching and listening. All ships have been called to keep a lookout for it. But at least the carrier has been found,” said Modak.

7 October 2005. Reported salvage tug Smit Amandla now has bulk Satsang in tow and is holding the vessel, pending the arrival of another tug, which will then resume the Satsang’s break-up voyage.

11 October 2005. Salvage tug Jupiter 6 is officially presumed lost with all hands after an emergency radio beacon signal was picked up and a search failed to find the vessel. Several grim signs pointed to the fate of the tug, missing for more than a month. The clues are a belated signal from an emergency position indicating radio beacon, a patch of oil and a piece of wreckage in a position about 200 miles south of Port Elizabeth, well off the shipping lanes. This seems to be the tragic conclusion to the mystery that has haunted the shipping industry since 6 September, the day the last communication from the Indian-owned tug was heard. The tug and her tow were reported missing when no further communications were received and vessels at sea were asked to keep a lookout. At the weekend, the tug’s emergency beacon finally began signalling and the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Bellville sent an SA Air Force long-range aircraft to search the sea around the position signalled by the beacon. Two vessels joined in the search. The aircraft crew saw only a patch of oil and a piece of wreckage, but no survivors or other signs of the vessel. Even the wreckage and the oil could not officially be linked to the tug, said a spokesman for the rescue centre who did not wish to be named. The Jupiter 6 had left Cuba for India with scrapped bulk Satsang, in tow about three months ago. They stayed six weeks at Walvis Bay while repairs to the tug’s propellers and engine were made, shipping sources said. After dipping beyond the horizon off the Namibian coast, however, it was never seen again. Her last communication with its owners was 6 September. After that, silence. Then, two weeks ago, the Satsang was spotted by a bulk carrier. It was drifting alone in the ocean currents about 220 miles south of Port Elizabeth, her tow wire hanging straight down, and of the Jupiter 6 there was no sign. But the mystery of how the tug met its fate has only deepened. Could she have been afloat until recently, her crew battling to the last to keep her from sinking, with no working radios with which to call for help, or did she sink weeks ago? If she had sunk some time ago, the signal from the beacon would not have been heard now, the rescue centre spokesman said. “These beacons have a battery life of only 90 hours. Even if it went down with the vessel and only popped up now, its battery would have been activated already. “We would not have heard the signal because it would have been under water and the battery would have been dead by the time it surfaced,” he said. But if the tug had been struggling to stay afloat, why did the crew not take to their life rafts? The Satsang was finally taken in tow by the South African salvage tug Smit Amandla last week after waiting for days to get salvors aboard the derelict in rough weather. Salvors who boarded the vessel reported that the tow rope attached to its bow had been snapped and that two emergency towing rigs assumed to have been set up by the Jupiter 6 crew had also failed. Such evidence indicated that the Jupiter 6’s crew had a terrible battle to try to reconnect their tow twice during bad weather.

2 3 October 2005 Shinsei Maru No. 3 (Japan)

The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) has concluded that an Israeli container vessel hit a Japanese fishing boat that capsized off the northernmost prefecture late last month, officials said today. Nemuro Coast Guard Office officials said that traces of paint stuck to the 19-ton fishing Shinsei Maru No.3 matched that on the Israeli vessel, which is now at anchor at Pusan Port. Yesterday, the Japanese Coast Guard raised the sunken fishing vessel and found a metre-long crack in its bow and a deep scratch some six to seven metres long along its side. At the request of the JCG, South Korea’s maritime police took paint samples from the Israeli vessel, c.c. Zim Asia (41507 gt, built 1996), and provided them to the JCG. The JCG is analyzing records of the vessel’s course on a global positioning system (GPS) in a bid to specify the exact location and time of the accident, and is poised to ask the Israeli government to cooperate with investigations into the accident. The owner of the vessel has reportedly denied the vessel’s involvement in the accident, according to JCG officials. The Shinsei Maru No.3 capsized in the Pacific Ocean off Cape Nosappu in Nemuro on 28 September after being hit by another vessel. One crewmember was rescued but the other seven died. (Note – Zim Asia sailed Seattle 18 September for Busan.)

3 October 2005. The Zim shipping company on Sunday (2 October) announced that if it were to be discovered that one of its vessels had been involved in the hit-and-run maritime collision off the coast of Japan last Wednesday that killed seven Japanese fisherman, the company would accept responsibility. Zim spokesperson said the company is fully prepared to cooperate with all investigations of the incident. “If it is discovered that c.c. Zim Asia was involved with the accident, the Zim company will accept responsibility,” the company said in a statement. The spokesperson also said the company is conducting an internal investigation into the matter. He said the chairman of Zim’s Asia region, Captain Yigal Dafne, was sent to the vessel to question the crew, and that a group of company representatives had been sent to Japan to participate in the investigation there. The spokesperson said initial reports of the internal investigation indicated that the crew had not felt any contact with another boat. But the results of the external investigation thus far have strengthened suspicions that Zim Asia was the culprit. The accident took place near Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island, at about 0300 on Wednesday, when a large vessel collided with a fishing boat (fishing Shinsei Maru No.3), causing it to capsize. The vessel then allegedly sped away from the scene of the accident without reporting the collision or trying to assist the fishermen. As a result, seven of the eight crew members drowned. On Sunday, the Japanese Coast Guard raised the sunken fishing boat and found a metre-long crack in its bow and a deep scratch some six to seven metres long along its side. The investigation is now focusing on comparing the paint that was scraped from the fishing boat in the collision with the paint found in several dents on the Zim Asia. An inspection of the latter that was carried out at the South Korean port of Busan, where the Zim Asia docked on Friday, discovered two places, one on the vessel’s bow and one on its belly, that bore marks as if the vessel had struck something, and white paint was found in both places. This indicates that if the Zim Asia was the culprit, it hit the fishing boat at least twice. Samples of the paint found on the Zim Asia have been sent to Japan for comparison with the fishing boat’s paint. However, according to the Japanese authorities, all of the 16 vessels known to be in the vicinity of the collision last Wednesday have been examined, and only the Israeli vessel bore the marks of a collision. The Zim Asia first emerged as a suspect when an examination of the radar signals emitted by the vessel that hit the fishing boat discovered that this radar signature is unique to Israeli vessels. A check of which Israeli vessels had been in the area at the time then pointed to the Zim Asia as the most likely culprit. As a result, the Japanese asked the Korean authorities to inspect the vessel when it docked at Busan, its next stop. The collision was also observed by another nearby fishing boat, whose crew said that the vessel in question had almost collided with their boat as well. Crew members said that after the collision, the vessel responsible for the accident blinked its lights and then sailed away at high speed. It was the crew of this second fishing boat that recorded the guilty vessel’s radar signals and transferred them to the Japanese authorities for identification. The Israeli embassy in Japan said Sunday that the Japanese authorities have not yet contacted them officially about the investigation. However, both the embassy and the Israeli Transportation Ministry confirmed that the Israel Shipping Administration has decided to send an investigator of its own to Hong Kong to question the Zim Asia’s crew. The vessel is slated to dock in Hong Kong on 5 October. While Korean policemen questioned the Zim Asia’s crew in Busan, the crew reportedly refused to cooperate. The Zim Asia was supposed to have docked at Shanghai Sunday morning, but was delayed by the interrogation of its crew in Busan. It will therefore arrive there today. The Zim shipping company insisted Sunday that none of its vessels has been involved in a collision of any kind in recent weeks.

4 October 2005. The Israeli vessel involved in a collision off the coast of Japan last Thursday (29 September) had identified the Japanese fishing boat shortly before the accident took place but failed to take any evasive actions, the captain actually being asleep at the time, it was alleged today. Seven fisherman died in the collision between c.c. Zim Asia and Japanese fishing Shinsei Maru No.3 off the coast of the northern Japanese island, Hokkaido. They also noted the suspicion that the Israeli vessel had fled the scene of the accident without searching for survivors or reporting it to the authorities. Zim Asia’s crew, who were briefly questioned by local police in Pusan, South Korea in relation to the incident, denied any knowledge of it. The vessel’s navigational equipment did in fact alert the crew to the presence of the Japanese boat on Thursday night, according to a series of dispatches sent between the Zim Asia and its company headquarters in Israel. However, the vessel’s second-in-command on duty at the time failed to respond to the warnings and did not wake up the vessel’s captain, Moshe Ben David, as required by protocol. Furthermore, Zim Asia’s crew admitted changing course around the time of the collision, but claimed they had done so without being aware a collision had taken place. However, the radar-tracking log on the nearby Japanese fishing boat Fushimi Maru 13 recorded that the change in vessel’s course occurred immediately after the Japanese fishing boat had disappeared from its screens. When Korean police asked captain Ben David whether his vessel had been near Okaido on the night of the collision, he said: “Hokkaido, I’ve never heard of such a place.” The vessel soon left South Korea on the way to its next port of call, Shanghai, before police could come to any conclusions. Zim headquarters initially denied that one of their vessels had been involved in the accident but after a preliminary inquiry admitted that Zim Asia had indeed collided with Shinsei Maru No.3, but said the crew and captain had no idea that anything had taken place. Ben David is to be suspended until further notice on arrival in Hong Kong. Zim president, Doron Guder, arrived in Japan today and will travel to Hokkaido to meet with the fisherman’s families and offer them a public apology and financial compensation.

6 October 2005. Four Japanese coastguard officials will arrive in Hong Kong today as part of their investigation into last week’s collision between fishing Shinsei Maru No.3 and c.c. Zim Asia off the Japanese coast, which killed seven fishermen. Paint marks indicate Zim Asia hit Shinsei Maru No.3, causing it to capsize. Seven fishermen were later found dead inside the trawler, an eighth man was rescued. Japan’s deputy consul general in Hong Kong, Mikio Numata, confirmed that the inspectors’ arrival would coincide with that of Zim Asia, which is due to berth around 1700, local time. Investigators hope to board the vessel, talk to the crew and inspect log books, although final approval rests with the Israeli government. An official from Israel’s Department of Transport was due to arrive in Hong Kong yesterday. Zim Asia Pacific president, Igal Dafni, who is heading Zim’s in-house investigation, told Kyoto news agency that 12 vessels, including seven fishing vessels, were in the area at the time of the accident. He said Zim Asia was trying to avoid another vessel and was unaware of Shinsei Maru No.3. The company is investigating whether the radar system failed to sound an alert. A report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said a collision warning was sounded but the chief officer failed to respond to the warnings and did not alert the master, Moshe Ben David, who was asleep in his cabin. The master will be suspended when the vessel arrives in Hong Kong. Both the transport department and Zim are carrying out separate investigations into the incident.