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A STRICKEN CARGO ship carrying timber from west Africa has been successfully towed into the northern Spanish port of Bilbao after a days-long salvage operation prevented it from crashing into the neighbouring French coast.
A tugboat dragged the listing Panama-registered “Modern Express” into the port accompanied by other vessels, an AFP photographer said, after an unexplained breakdown in high seas last month forced the 22 crew-members to abandon ship in a dramatic helicopter rescue.
The 164-metre-long (538 feet) ship will now have to be moored and put upright again in the coming days in the biggest ever such operation organised by the port of Bilbao, one of the largest on Spain’s Atlantic coast.
The Modern Express was carrying diggers and 3,600 tonnes of timber from Gabon in west Africa to the port of Le Havre in Normandy, France, when it ran into difficulties in January.
It was also carrying 300 tonnes of fuel oil, although authorities said there was a limited risk of pollution in the event of a crash.
The ship’s crew sent a distress signal on 26 January after the vessel listed strongly to one side, possibly due to its cargo coming loose in the hull.
Two Spanish helicopters were dispatched to airlift the crew to safety.
They had been left clinging to the deck of the ship after it tilted at an angle of 40 degrees while buffeted by large waves and high winds.
‘Moving mountain’
The abandoned ship then drifted in rough seas for several days before authorities launched a bid to attach a tow line and stop it from hitting the French coast.
Dutch salvage experts were lowered by helicopter onto the vessel to try and attach the line.
They failed three times, with the cable snapping last Saturday due to swells of up to five metres (16 feet).
“The difficulty is a combination of several things: the wind, the swell and the angle of the boat which is like climbing a mountain, but which is moving,” a spokesperson for SMIT Salvage, the Dutch company working to attach the towline, told AFP over the weekend.
On Monday, as the ship was approaching dangerously close to the coast not far from the western French resort of La Rochelle, they launched a final attempt and succeeded in connecting a tugboat to the vessel.
The tugboat pivoted the ship, pointed it towards the open sea and started slowly dragging it away from France to Bilbao at the request of the vessel’s owner, South Korean firm Cido Shipping.
By late yesterday the ship was nearing Bilbao, according to Spanish authorities, who decided to delay the operation to bring it into port until daylight today.
If the towing operation had failed, the Modern Express would likely have crashed into France’s coast, where it would have been dismantled or cut up.
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My wood lists to one side also!
A number of poor ratchet strap operatives on board it looks like
The ship is listing not almost completely listing, it is almost capsized.
3,600 tonnes of timber from Gabon. Half a rainforest down the swanny.
Yeah- whether it was licenced timber or not, it was coming from forests that would better serve us all by being left as, well- forests. I hate the media blindness on this sort of casual destruction.
Bingo dara!
If Cido shipping abandoned the vessel are they no longer the owner? Salvage rights and all that?
Salvage doesn’t work that way. It’s an expensive bill though.
The ship should be fine, if she was carrying timber there’s a good chance it absorbed a lot of water and the GM (centre of gravity) went negative.
that ship is wrecked
Definitely a combination of heavy seas , a cargo shift and may even be caused by incorrect loading as the vessel is not only listed over 40 degrees but is also unbalanced fore to aft .
Great workplace by SMIT one of the best marine companies in the world .
Could be water absorption in the timber cargo? Extra weight up high leading to a negative GM.
I think she took a sudden list before the storms.
Looking forward to the informed expert views on this…..
Gabon
Gabon
©UNEP-WCMC 2004
Over the past ten years, Gabon has gone through a profound process of reform affecting the forest and environment. A new forest law has come into force that emphasizes SFM as the overall approach in the PFE. Forestry is, and will remain, one of the pillars of Gabon’s economic and social development. The private sector has become a major driver of industrial forest development and the export of forest products. The government has introduced a system to institutionalize community forestry as a way of meeting local needs for timber and other forest products. Gabon has a low deforestation rate, forests rich in valuable timber species and among the best prospects for a healthy and sustainable forest industry. There are still problems – mainly in governance. For example, there is little civil advocacy and few participatory processes in the forestry sector. Protected-area management in Gabon is still in its infancy and requires greater planning and effective enforcement.
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