By Brian Ingpen
MARITIME MEMORIES
FAR LEFT: Wolraad Woltemade in Curacao for bunkers. Photograph: Ian Merriman Collection
LEFT: Deepsea towing involves working in close quarters with the vessel under tow and often with other tugs. Late in 2004, Wolraad Woltemade began the tow of the LNG FPSO Sanha from Japan to Cape Town where, in early 2005, she passed the tow to her sistership Smit Amandla as shown in this photograph. SA Amandla completed the tow of Sanha to Angola where the FPSO took up station. Photograph: Ian Merriman Collection
Mate aboard Wolraad Woltemade with which he would be associated for the next 27 years. Seven years later, he was promoted to Master of the tug. That appointment gave new impetus to his career. He relished the complex ship-handling and real seamanship associated with these tugs. “On the tug, you’re down next to the sea,” he enthuses with considerable expression, “you hear it, close up, and you feel the spray on your face!” And many times has he had to manoeuvre his tug with meticulous care to close a disabled vessel in bad weather or to avoid his tug stranding on the same reef that was holding a casualty. His first operation as Master would test his abilities to the extreme. Amid a south-west gale and rough seas, the tug was anchored off Plettenberg Bay when she was ordered to sea as the towing line between a tug, Stella, and the unmanned barge, Shillilagh 1, had parted, leaving the barge adrift in those adverse conditions. To everyone’s delight, the operation was to be conducted in terms of a Lloyd’s Open Form – a no cure, no pay statutory agreement used in salvage work. Wolraad Woltemade reached the barge the next morning to find that the towing tug had been damaged by the storm; that most of her towing line was hanging down from the barge, and that Stella did not have a spare towing line. In that heavy swell, Wolraad Woltemade’s Chief Officer Kevin Tate and Second Engineer Rob Swier boarded the barge and Swier cut through the bridle leg, releasing the damaged towing line before they connected a line from Wolraad Woltemade. Merriman then set course for Port Elizabeth and, with the sea still extremely turbulent, the tug delivered the barge making his first salvage job as Master a
“On the tug, you’re down next to the sea. You hear it, close up, and you feel the spray on your face!” resounding success. Massive mission In the comfort of his home, Merriman reflected on a another contract in August 1991 as his most nerve-wracking experience. “I hadn’t done any job involving such a large, deep-draughted ship before,” he said. “We were in Cape Town,” he recalls, “and, as things were quiet, I went to buy golf clubs. Then my pager went.” Wolraad Woltemade had been idle for four months since towing the 181-metre forest products carrier Kiwi Arrow into Cape Town. “Where are you?” asked a rather agitated Captain Dai Davies. “Get yourself back to the tug now,” he said. “A tanker’s in trouble!” Merriman hastened back to the tug where the crew had already singled up, and, within minutes, the powerful tug had put to sea and into extreme weather. “When we were off Cape Agulhas,” he recalled, “the swell was probably close to 30 metres!” In mid-July, the 363-metre Norwegian tanker Mimosa had sailed from the Arabian Gulf with a full cargo of about 350,000 tons of crude oil, destined for Rotterdam. Her voyage along the east coast of Africa had been uneventful, but as she passed East London, she encountered deteriorating weather as a depression and its accompanying gale had stirred up the sea to an alarming degree. In extremely heavy seas to the east of Algoa Bay, Mimosa suffered a failure in the hydraulic steering gear making it impossible to steer and rendering the
vessel at the mercy of the huge swell. Before long, she was beam-on to the swell, exposing the hull to severe stress that caused her to crack, and, driven by the heavy swell, she was drifting towards Cape Recife. Alarming the South African authorities was the severe and serious threat of the huge, laden tanker drifting ashore and breaking up, or that the cracking would result in her breaking up at sea. In either event, the prospect of the world’s largest oil spill was too ghastly to contemplate. Wolraad Woltemade arrived at the scene and, despite the extreme difficulty of connecting up amid such rough conditions, she began to turn the tanker with her bow into the swell. Although the intervention of the tug had ameliorated the situation a little, Mimosa was not out of danger, particularly as that enormous swell continued. Under the command of Captain Danny Betts, John Ross arrived later, and connected up aft to act as the steering vessel, while Wolraad Woltemade towed Mimosa into Algoa Bay where, over several days, her oil cargo was transshipped to her sistership, Hansa Vega that miraculously had been passing in ballast at the time. Once the marathon transshipment had been completed, Wolraad Woltemade began the long tow of the damaged tanker to Dubai for repairs. Considering what could have happened had the tugs not been able to respond as they did – the possible loss of the large, modern ship and extensive oil pollution of the Eastern Cape coastline on a mind-boggling scale that would have cost millions to clean up – London arbitrators awarded a record salvage claim to
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