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12th August 2020, 09:11 AM
#11
Re: Mauritius Wakashio oil spill
the beautiful coast line of Mauritius effected by the oil spill from the bulk carrier WAKASHIO
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12th August 2020, 11:26 AM
#12
Re: Mauritius Wakashio oil spill
R689823
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12th August 2020, 12:22 PM
#13
Re: Mauritius Wakashio oil spill
#8 Thanks for info, but they are not the type of tugs that we call 'on station' these are large ocean going salvage tugs with strong bollard pulls and free running speeds of 15 - 18 knots+ to enable them to reach an incident.
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12th August 2020, 06:54 PM
#14
Re: Mauritius Wakashio oil spill
Ivan, the tug at Mauritius in the early seventies was a latrge ocean going salvage tug.
In the couple of Christmas that we visited she had never moved, as posted earlier, she made her money on one salvage.
Googling Mauritius how the Port has changed over the years, there was two roads that ships lined up and tied to buoys, all discharging was into barges.
It seems like a modern port with berth for sugar loading, berths for general cargo, container berths etc.
Vic
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13th August 2020, 07:31 AM
#15
Re: Mauritius
Spencer you may hold the view that all ship owner are money grabbers , and that is your right, but before passing judgement you have to look into some facts and think that to date Mauritius seems to have had good luck through the competence of navigators of all nations. During a period of 24 hours on 11th August AIS records show that 800 (yes 800) vessels passed Mauritius either north or southbound on its east or west coast as it is on the most direct route from the Malacca Straits, Singapore, Colombo and the Gulf etc for those vessels which have to round the Cape of Good Hope. Lets assume 11/08 was the busiest day, and we don't yet know that, and a slow day was 400 vessels, it is certainly a busy place.
I'd say that it rather proves that the average navigator is very competent rather than the opposite, and as said previously would not hang anyone until the facts are known. There are circa 55,000 merchant vessels sailing the world's oceans and the number of incidents by comparison is rare.
As for greedy shipowners, there may be some, as in all businesses, but I would not tar all with the same brush, ship owners have to make a profit, as without profit there is no money to invest in new ships, no new ships = no jobs. I was a Marine Supt for three different companies, all 'prudent' shipowners, but if you could make your case for improvement of crew conditions, improvement of vessels, improvement of safety equipment above Int'l Regs, etc, they would listen and you could enact. I for one do not concur that all ship owners are barstewards, some Mar Supts I replaced, certainly were, thus making my job harder to improve things. But that was my experience, others may have found different
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13th August 2020, 08:03 AM
#16
Re: Mauritius
All my time at sea I never forgot that I was there to look after the owners interests and did this according to my conscience. There were times when I cut corners but these were with mininum disadvantage to personel. We dont live in a perfect world and everything is not black and white. If I thought a shipowner was taking dangerous risks I would rather leave his employment In a lot of cases it was the fault or the mis- management of the seagoing staff in trying to impress others such as management ashore who were at fault A master of a ship is responsible for that ship and all who sail on it. If he isn’t prepared to take that responsibility then he shouldn’t be there. Give the job to someone who is . JS
Last edited by j.sabourn; 13th August 2020 at 08:04 AM.
R575129
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14th August 2020, 12:58 AM
#17
Re: Mauritius
Hi Brian.
In that first picture you put up it looks like they hit a spur jutting out from the reef, maybe they were sailing close to the reef to make up time, but then again that spur would have been on the charts.
Des
R510868
Lest We Forget
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14th August 2020, 05:23 AM
#18
Re: Mauritius
put the captain on the beach with a spade and bucket cleaning his mess up not the companies mess his mess let him see the wildlife that he has killed money cant cover everything that nature over many years has given the world and it shows it only takes one to spoil everything can we rely put this down as an accident or browney points for the captain? jp
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14th August 2020, 07:53 AM
#19
Re: Mauritius
Originally Posted by
John Pruden
put the captain on the beach with a spade and bucket cleaning his mess up not the companies mess his mess let him see the wildlife that he has killed money cant cover everything that nature over many years has given the world and it shows it only takes one to spoil everything can we rely put this down as an accident or browney points for the captain? jp
Thank god we haven't yet reached back into the old days of guilty until proved innocent by the ducking stool. Why don't we wait for the facts, I would expect such remarks from a landlubber John, but not from someone who has served at sea. Lets assume that the vessel was sailing 15 -20 miles ( a good margin) off the reef with an offshore wind and following normal recommended route practice in fine clear weather. She has an engine breakdown (fault of the captain no doubt!), the wind changes to an onshore wind, we have an 800 ft vessel with a freeboard in ballast of 30 - 40 feet (over a 800 feet length) that is one big sail that you have no control over, and the water is too deep for anchoring, the only anchoring depth is close to the reef by that time this large sail has gathered momentum and is unstoppable, what do you do? what CAN you do, except hope that your engineers can get the engines started again. You as Master realise the consequences, financial, environmental, careerwise etc of grounding on a reef, but the circumstances are beyond your control. Tell me John what would you have done to avoid going out with your bucket and spade
It is only an example of a possible scenario, there may be others, I am surprised by the number of ex seafarers on this site who want to hang another seafarer before the facts are known. What we do know is that the weather changed whilst the vessel was grounded from calm to gale to calm in a couple of days
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14th August 2020, 11:33 AM
#20
Re: Mauritius
Just been looking at photos of the incident. The ship is lying stern to on the reef which is clearly visible. A bunker barge is alongside and it is reported all the heavy oil is now pumped off. There is also a salvage tug standing close by. The ship is Japanese owned but cannot see her port of registration as the stern is so far down. Her two lifeboats are still in position.
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