The Irish coastguard's handling of the rescue and repair of the Princess Eva has been exemplary, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent.
News reporting is a fickle business, and never more than when international events dominate - or when a potential disaster has a happy outcome. So when the single-hull oil tanker, Princess Eva, left Donegal Bay early last month, it didn't receive too much attention.
Yet Lloyd's List, the prestigious international maritime daily newspaper, followed the ship's progress and issued plaudits, contrasting Ireland's handling of the Princess Eva with Spain's highly controversial response to the Prestige tanker incident last November.
Its front page headline read, "Mangouras out of jail as Irish show how it's done". "Mangouras" was Capt Apostolos Mangouras, the unfortunate master of the Prestige which ran into trouble off the Galician coast on November 13th, 2002. A single-hull tanker, like the Eva, the ship was carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil at the time, and salvage operations were hampered by bad weather. The ship was towed out into the Atlantic where it sank six days later.
Traces of the ship's cargo are still being washed up on the Iberian and French coastlines. Not only was Spain criticised for failing to allow the vessel into sheltered waters, where the cargo might have been offloaded and the ship saved, but it also angered maritime organisations for its arrest of the ship's captain.
Capt Mangouras was detained for 85 days in a high security jail, before being released on bail. The managers of the London P&I Club, which paid his €3 million bail, described the sum charged as "offensive".
Compare this then with the Irish response to the Princess Eva. The Japanese-built, Panamanian-registered tanker with a largely Argentinian crew was en route from Copenhagen to Corpus Christi, in Texas, via the north coast of Ireland, with 55,000 tonnes of vacuum gas oil when it hit heavy weather on January 28th of this year.
While trying to secure a life raft on deck some 130 miles off the west coast, three crew were involved in a horrible accident. A freak wave threw the men across the ship; one died immediately, and a second within hours, even as the Irish Coast Guard helicopter from Shannon was en route and battling 80 knot winds.
The third man, Uruguayan Carlos Hernandez, had a leg amputated, and was kept alive by crew members until the helicopter arrived and winched him off. In a deposition to the inquest into the deaths of Andres Manrique (29) and Pedro Sanchez (55), Hernandez said the waves were coming from the east and that he was struck from behind. He remembered nothing further before regaining consciousness in University College Hospital, Galway.
Immediately after the accident, the Princess Eva altered course and headed for the Irish coast where it anchored off Killybegs and arranged for the transfer of the bodies ashore. It was about to sail with relief crew when cracks were detected on the deck.
The Maritime Safety Directorate (MSD) - a new body replacing the Marine Survey Office that was established under the aegis of the Department of Marine and Natural Resources - sent two surveyors to the ship to carry out "port state control" inspection. The cracking was confirmed, and the MSD issued a detention order. The vessel would not be allowed to sail until the fractures had been repaired; and as some of the cracks were in the cargo and ballast tanks, the cargo of vacuum gas oil would have to be offloaded to allow welding to be carried out.
According to Capt Geoff Livingstone, assistant director of the Irish Coast Guard, it was a decision fraught with risks. Donegal Bay is an environmentally sensitive area, with fish farms, Blue Flag beaches, Biomar sites, Special Protected Areas, National Heritage Areas and Special Areas of Conservation. Three Irish Coast Guard personnel were dispatched immediately to Donegal. Killybegs is one of several locations with a stock of Irish Coast Guard counter-pollution equipment, so some 1,200 metres of floating boom barriers were placed in and around Killybegs.
The first challenge was to reach agreement between all the interested parties: the ship's owners, the Japanese classification society/insurer and the Irish Coast Guard. Customs, the local authority, the harbourmaster, the regional fisheries board and Dúchas, the Heritage Service, were also consulted, and there were twice-daily meetings. Eventually, two vessels took the cargo, the first transhipment taking place on February 12th, the second a week later.
The work didn't finish there. Tank cleaning took place from February 21st to 26th, before the vessel repairs started. The Irish Coast Guard says the owners co-operated fully throughout. In fact, it was "textbook" in terms of the smooth response. The detention order was lifted on March 6th, and the vessel sailed to Buenos Aires.
Six MSD surveyors had been brought in to help, along with the three Irish Coast Guard staff. In all, Irish Coast Guard staff involvement "on site" came to 104 days.
The Minister for Marine and Natural Resources, Dermot Ahern, described the work as "tremendous", and said it clearly demonstrated the diverse role of the Irish Coast Guard, beginning with the rescue of a crewman in atrocious conditions and later "ensuring a safe, successful and pollution-free incident". Capt Kieran O'Higgins, president of the Irish Institute of Master Mariners, says the bouquets are well deserved. Ireland made a "firm and sensible decision" to confine the Princess Eva to Donegal Bay.
"The Spanish forced the Prestige away from the coast. It was already leaking and badly damaged, and the inevitable happened - it broke in two and sank. Recent reports say 80 tonnes of oil a day have been coming up and washing ashore, widely spread along the coast of Galicia, and marine industry such as fishing and shellfish has been devastated. The bill is going to be big."
Capt O'Higgins draws comparisons with the French government's handling of the Erika tanker incident, when another single hull ship broke in two 14 nautical miles off south Brittany in 1999, and polluted 200 miles of French coastline. He said the French response was similar to the Spanish one and the master of the Erika was also held in jail before finally being released without charge.
In the case of Capt Mangouras of the Prestige, charges had been levelled against him for "not co-operating with the authorities" and "environmental pollution".
"No one condones criminal acts or non-co-operation, but accounts of the incident do not seem to indicate that Capt Mangouras did anything other than attempt to save his ship and the lives of his crew," Capt O'Higgins says. "From a mariner's point of view, and as president of the IIMM, my concern is that ship masters are being increasingly scape-goated and criminalised as easy targets."
He says that by contrast, the master of the Eva, was treated in a very humanitarian way by the Irish authorities.
Capt O'Higgins says that all three incidents - the Erika, the Prestige and the Princess Eva - will influence a much-needed debate on "ports of refuge". A private members' bill on this subject has been introduced in Britain.
Lloyd's List, in an editorial, said the fact that the Princess Eva was not a reprise of the Spanish disaster owed much to "the willingness of the coastal state to step in with assistance and the offer of a place of refuge".
At EU level, ministers, including Dermot Ahern, agreed late last month to ban the transport of heavy fuel oil by single-hull tankers from July of this year, and to bring forward the agreed date for an outright ban on single-hulls in Community waters from 2015 to 2010. The phasing out of some of the oldest tankers will start in 2005, subject to EU ratification.
A report published in 1999 on pollution preparedness recommended that the State should purchase an emergency towing vessel or tug which could be shared with Britain if necessary. Government approval for this was secured three years ago by former marine minister, Frank Fahey. At the time, he pointed out the obvious cost benefits, given that the estimated cost of clean-up after pollution was then €140 euro per gallon of oil deposited, amounting to "millions" of euro in total. However, the proposal has been put "on hold".