By Tahna Weston
Port Manager Darwin Telemaque is praising the efforts of the pilot and captain of a car carrier ship – which was bringing around 100 vehicles into the country – in averting serious damage to the vessel.
Telemaque said that the incident at the Deep Water Harbour on Thursday occurred when the vessel was departing the main berth number two.
He said the ship was met by a wind gust that switched from the northeast to the southeast.
He noted that the pilot and captain did well in keeping it together and added that he is happy that there was no damage to the vessel.
“With a car vessel consisting of a wind span of about 3,000 square metres, because it’s a box-shaped vessel, it is normal for any gust of wind going up against that surface to create movement in the opposite direction.
“So the vessel was leaving the berth going past another vessel when the wind started pushing the vessel with the vehicles towards the other vessel,” Telemaque said.
The pilot, with the assistance of the captain, Telemaque said, decided to speed up the forward movement of the ship to avoid any additional challenges.
It was while doing so that the vessel ended up in a small mud bank that exists just outside of the channel on the western end of the pier.
Telemaque said that there are sometimes difficult situations which occur, which they do not like to see happen, but such events have occurred in the past which have been resolved without too much damage to the vessel.
He said that the captain and the pilot made the right choice in this instance, adding that the pilot was aware of his surroundings and knew the mud bank was in the area.
The Port Manager noted that it would have been more damaging had the wind pushed the ship back onto the other vessel which was at berth.
According to him, they did the right thing by going forward to avoid any collision at the berth itself.
“Obviously when you exit the channel you are in shallower waters and that is why we do have a channel. So because the wind was pushing the vessel north, which is away from the channel and because they could not go back to berth, because of where they were, they moved forward and the vessel got stuck for a couple of hours in the mud,” Telemaque said.
He said the efforts of the pilot, which were subsequently supported by additional personnel from the port, made it possible to free the vessel which sailed back to the berth, before leaving for another destination.
The ship, Telemaque said, was examined both by divers and underwater cameras as well as an internal survey that was done by the crew, which revealed that there was no damage to either the internal or external parts of the vessel, which has since sailed to neighbouring St Kitts.
Telemaque said the boat is in good working order and the captain and crew are happy after going through the ordeal for more than three hours.
Telemaque said the job of the pilots, charged with guiding vessels into the port, is not easy since from time to time they have had to manoeuvre around various weather patterns, including visibility issues, currents, waves, and the wind.
“He made the right decision and they ended up in a bit of a problem, not a major problem, just a little problem and we were not deterred, we knew we were going to be able to overcome that. It took a couple of hours and they were ready to go,” the Port Manager said.
Telemaque said that every pilot encounters challenges including vessels being grounded, which has happened at Crabbes quite a few times, which is one of the reasons why the channel there is being dredged.
Under local laws, the pilot is absolved from any liability in instances such as these, but the master would be responsible at every point, while the captain is responsible for his ship, Telemaque added.
