Guidelines on places of refuge for ships in need of assistance
Guidelines on the establishment of Maritime Assistance Services
Background on the Castor incident
Background on the Prestige accident
Background on the Erika accident
In May 2002, the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC)
at its 75th session, approved, in principle, the proposed general framework
concerning future work on places of refuge developed by the Sub-Committee on
Safety of Navigation (NAV).
Future work places high priority on the safety of all involved in any operation concerning the provision of places of refuge, with due attention to all environmental aspects associated with these operations. This will include the preparation of guidelines for:
The Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation will co-ordinate the work, while input
should also come from the Sub-Committee on Radiocommunications, Search and
Rescue (COMSAR) and the Marine Environment protection Committee (MEPC).
Guidelines on places of refuge for ships in need of assistance
Guidelines on places of refuge for ships in need of assistance were adopted at
the 23rd Assembly in 2003. The IMO Assembly has developed Guidelines on places
of refuge for ships in need of assistance (Assembly Resolution A.949(23). The
guidelines are intended for use when a ship is in need of assistance but safety
of life is not involved. Where the safety of life is involved, the provisions of
the SAR Convention should be followed.
The guidelines recognise that when a ship has suffered an incident, the best way of preventing damage or pollution from its progressive deterioration is to transfer its cargo and bunkers, and to repair the casualty. Such an operation is best carried out in a place of refuge. However, to bring such a ship into a place of refuge near a coast may endanger the coastal State, both economically and from the environmental point of view, and local authorities and populations may strongly object to the operation.
Therefore, granting access to a place of refuge could involve a political decision which can only be taken on a case-by-case basis with consideration of the balance between the advantage for the affected ship and the environment resulting from bringing the ship into a place of refuge and the risk to the environment resulting from that ship being near the coast.
The purpose of the guidelines is to provide shipmasters, shipowners (particularly in connection with the ISM Code), salvors and Member Governments with a framework enabling them to respond effectively and in such a way that, in any given situation, the efforts of the master and owner of the ship and the efforts of the government authorities are complementary. In particular, an attempt has been made to arrive at a common framework for assessing the situation of ships in need of assistance.
Guidelines on the establishment of Maritime Assistance Services
The guidelines in resolution A.949(23) are intended for use when a ship is in
need of assistance but the safety of life is not involved. Where the safety of
life is involved, the provisions of the SAR Convention should continue to be
followed.
The guidelines recognize that, when a ship has suffered an incident, the best way of preventing damage or pollution from its progressive deterioration is to transfer its cargo and bunkers, and to repair the casualty. Such an operation is best carried out in a place of refuge. However, to bring such a ship into a place of refuge near a coast may endanger the coastal State, both economically and from the environmental point of view, and local authorities and populations may strongly object to the operation.
Therefore, granting access to a place of refuge could involve a political decision which can only be taken on a case-by-case basis. In so doing, consideration would need to be given to balancing the interests of the affected ship with those of the environment.
A second resolution A.950(23) Maritime Assistance Service (MAS), recommends that all coastal States should establish a maritime assistance service (MAS). The principal purposes would be to receive the various reports, consultations and notifications required in a number of IMO instruments; monitoring a ship's situation if such a report indicates that an incident may give rise to a situation whereby the ship may be in need of assistance; serving as the point of contact if the ship's situation is not a distress situation but nevertheless requires exchanges of information between the ship and the coastal State, and for serving as the point of contact between those involved in a marine salvage operation undertaken by private facilities if the coastal State considers that it should monitor all phases of the operation.
Following a decision by IMO's Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) that, at present, the issue should be considered from the operational safety point of view, the Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation has prepared two draft Assembly resolutions. They include a set of Guidelines which state clearly what actions should be taken by ships' Masters, coastal States and Flag States in cases where ships are in need of assistance. They also recommend the establishment by coastal States of Maritime Assistance Services to be mobilized in relevant cases. They have been designed to provide a framework by which Governments will be able to assess each case on its merits and make the most appropriate decisions.
Background on the Castor incident
The decision by IMO’s
Maritime Safety Committee
(MSC) at its 74th session in May 2001 to look at the problem of
places of refuge came in the wake of the incident in the new year of 2001 in
which the salvors of the fully-laden tanker Castor were unable to find a
sheltered place to effect cargo transfer and repairs for some 35 days.
The incident sparked a great deal of concern about the provision of refuge for ships in distress and the then IMO Secretary-General Mr. William A O'Neil urged IMO Members to place the issue of offering refuge to disabled ships high on the Organization's agenda.
At the beginning of 2001, the fully laden 31,068 dwt tanker Castor developed a structural problem in the Mediterranean Sea en route from the Romanian port of Constanza to Lagos, Nigeria. The ship suffered damage to the hull resulting in a 24m crack (below) running from port to starboard halfway along its length. Following the incident, the classification society (American Bureau of shipping) withdrew the ship's certificates.
The ship was deemed to present a serious risk of explosion and rupture of the hull and the authorities of Morocco and Gibraltar prohibited its entry into waters or ports under their jurisdiction. Castor then sailed towards the vicinity of the south-eastern coast of Spain, accompanied by the Tsavliris tug Nicolay Chiker, with which the tanker's owner had agreed to effect transhipment of the cargo under a commercial salvage contract. The Spanish Maritime Authority requested the ship to keep at a distance from the Spanish coast.
A report, issued following the inspection of the ship by the Spanish authorities, described the situation as one of extreme seriousness due to the high risk of explosion, and recommended that the ship should not enter any port and should keep at a distance from the coast to minimize the consequences of a possible catastrophe.
Bringing the ship close to the Spanish coast for unloading, either by transhipment to another ship or by discharge to land installations was rejected as presenting a higher risk for the population, coastal properties and the environment than transhipment on the high seas. Spain stationed a helicopter, two salvage vessels, a maritime rescue rapid intervention craft as well as a Spanish Navy patrol boat in the area.
After units of the Spanish maritime rescue service had evacuated the 26 crew members, shipowners, salvage operators and other interested parties were informed that appropriate measures should be adopted to ensure that the ship withdrew from its current position and remained at a distance of at least 30 nautical miles from the Spanish coast, in the light of the unacceptable risk posed to Spanish coastal interests. Eventually, after being similarly unable to find shelter off Algeria, the Castor was towed to a relatively sheltered spot off the coast of Tunisia where her cargo was safely unloaded.
During his opening remarks to the 45th session of the Sub-Committee on Fire Protection (8 to 12 January), the then IMO Secretary-General Mr O'Neil called for the problem of safe havens for ships in distress to be tackled with some urgency. "It seems to me," he told the meeting, "that the time has come for the Organization to undertake, as a matter of priority, a global consideration of this problem and to adopt any measures required to ensure that, in the interests of safety and environmental protection, coastal states review their contingency arrangements so that disabled ships are provided with assistance and facilities as may be required in the circumstances."
The Spanish delegation to the meeting stated that the basic policy of its Government was the safeguarding of human life at sea and the combating of pollution in waters under its SAR responsibility, in compliance with its international obligations, and that it had accordingly proceeded to the successful rescue of the whole crew of the damaged ship. It stated that its Government had also an inescapable obligation to defend the safety of its coastal population and of property and environment along the Spanish coast, which should not be put at risk as a result of a commercial operation for the salvage and recovery of the ship's cargo.
Spain endorsed the call for action to establish sheltered waters on terms acceptable to coastal States, stressing also the need for IMO as a matter of urgency to approve and facilitate preventive action such as the improvement of port State inspections, the responsibilities required of classification societies and the withdrawal from service of single hull oil tankers.
Mr O'Neil subsequently used the occasion of his keynote address to the 20th annual "National Sea Day" organised by the Institut Francais de la Mer at the French Senate in Paris, to elaborate further his thinking on the subject. "Ships in a situation such as that facing the Castor do not need or want to proceed to a port," he said. "What they do need is access to relatively sheltered waters so that whatever operations must be performed to make them and their cargoes safe can be done with the minimum of risk to either the ship, the coastal State, the environment or indeed to the salvors themselves. One can very well understand the reluctance of coastal States to put their citizens or their coastlines at risk. At the same time, for the international community not to have some form of structured arrangements in place to cope with a ship in distress like the Castor is clearly not satisfactory and is a matter which we must address."
Background on the Prestige accident
On Wednesday, 13th of November 2002, the single-hulled oil tanker Prestige, flying the Bahamas flag, sent a distress call offshore the region of Cape finisterre (Galicia, Spain). The tanker was carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil loaded in St Petersburg (Russia) and Ventspils (Latvia), was heading to Singapore via Gibraltar. The vessel developed a reported 30 degrees starboard list whilst on passage in heavy seas and strong wind and so requested the partial evacuation of the crew. Twenty-four of the twenty-seven crew members were evacuated by helicopter while the captain, the first mate and the chief mechanic stayed aboard. As the engine was damaged, the ship became out of control and derived according to the weather conditions. An aerial observation revealed a fuel leak at sea.
All night long, the tug boats Ria de Vigo,
Alonso de Chaves, Charuca Silveira and Ibaizabal I from the Sociedad de
Salvamento y Seguridad Maritima (SASEMAR), the Spanish organization in charge of
the sea rescue and pollution control, tried to take in tow the oil tanker.
The emergency towing system of the ship didn’t work and the different attempts
failed. In the end, the Prestige was taken in tow by a ship from Smit salvage on
the 14th of November. It was towed to the north-northwest all day, and then to
the south. On the 15th, it was torn over 35 metres on the right side. On the
16th, its towing was turned to the south-west to avoid the Portuguese waters. On
the 19th at 9 am, the vessel broke in two, coordinates 42°15N and 12°08W, at
about 130 nautical miles off the Spanish coasts, west south-west of Cape
Finisterre. At 12 o’clock, the stern part of the Prestige sank into 3500 metres
of water. The bow part followed at about 4 pm.
Source : CEDRE : http://www.le-cedre.fr/uk/spill/prestige/prestige.html
Background on the Erika accident
On December 11, 1999, the Maltese tanker Erika, laden with 31,000 tonnes of heavy fuel n°6, en route from Dunkirk (France) to Livorno (Italy) in very rough sea conditions (Westerly wind, force 8 to 9, with 6 m swell), was faced with structural problems off the Bay of Biscay. After sending an alert message, then proceeding to transfers from tank to tank, the ship master informed the French authorities that the situation was under control and that he was heading to the port of Donges, at reduced speed. On the 12, at 6:05 a.m. he sent a Mayday: the ship was breaking up.
A rescue operation was immediately launched and the crew was winched sound and safe by French Navy helicopters, backed up by Royal Navy reinforcements, in extremely difficult conditions. The Erika split up in two parts at 8:15 a.m. (local time) in international waters, about thirty miles south of Penmarc'h (Southern Brittany). The quantity of oil spilt at that time was estimated between 7,000 and 10,000 tonnes. The bow sank during the following night, within little distance from the place where the ship broke up. The stern was taken in tow by the salvage tug Abeille Flandre on December 12, at 2:15 p.m., to avoid its drifting towards the
Source : http://www.le-cedre.fr/uk/spill/erika/erika.htm
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