Chaos was contained after ship blocked the entrance to Durban harbour
LAST week’s Durban storm carved an unprecedented path of destruction across the city, swamping highways, smashing homes and causing chaos in the harbour.
Among the unforgettable scenes were shots of the 348m container ship MSC Ines lying abeam to the entrance channel.
The ferocious wind had plucked her from her berth and, aided perhaps by an ebbing tide, driven her into the channel. En route, she – or perhaps another ship that had also broken her moorings – brushed the French frigate Floreal, berthed at the passenger terminal, causing considerable damage to the warship.
Five tugs pulled her from the channel and berthed her at one of the Point wharves. I suspect that, when her stern jammed against the North Pier, MSC Ines damaged her rudder, gear in the steering flat, and propeller, and she will probably require dry docking.
Sadly, despite years of folks campaigning for a large dry dock, she is too wide (43m) to dry dock in either Cape Town or Durban.
Unless local repairers can ballast her down by the head to work on the damaged rudder and perhaps replace the propeller, she will probably need to be towed elsewhere, and South African ship repair yards will miss out – yet again – on a significant repair job.
From rather gloomy, shaky photographs and videos taken of the incident amid driving rain and flying spray, I could not determine whether her anchors were still in the hawsepipes when she hit the North Pier.
There is also the suggestion that had the master ordered the anchors to be dropped, she may have slewed around in the wind, hitting other ships and causing even more damage.
It is possible that the port’s tugs were busy corralling other drifting ships, and hence arrived at MSC Ines rather later than expected. Hopefully the inquiry into the incident will reveal these details.
Television newscasts concentrated on flooded roads, submerged cars, damaged buildings and a swimming pool being peppered with hailstones. Serious as those were – and collective damage will run perhaps into billions – newshounds, curiously, provided scant coverage of the drifting container ship, other vessels that had also broken their moorings, and the extensive damage to yachts and other leisure craft in the marinas on Durban Bay.
No one outlined the serious situation had the container ship suffered greater grief and blocked the entrance channel for days.
Although Durban Harbour entrance was widened about eight years ago, a large container ship – even partly blocking the channel – would have closed the port to many ships. Imagine the cost of delays had loaded vessels not been able to leave or enter port.
Delays to the delivery of vehicle parts would have affected the huge Toyota assembly plant south of Durban and other similar factories that depend on “just-in-time” deliveries that are critical to many modern logistic chains. Indeed, many industries use ships as de facto moving storage facilities, reckoning on their timeous arrival to discharge goods important to production systems.
From the two oil refineries and ancillary industries, vital shipments of oil products – petrol, diesel, and a range of liquid chemicals – that leave Durban daily for East Africa, Indian Ocean islands as well as Port Elizabeth and East London would also have been delayed by a ship blocking the entrance.
At other times, Durban’s entrance can be tricky, given that the Bluff shelters departing vessels from an easterly wind until they pass its seaward end when the full impact of such a wind hits the ship.
High-sided car carriers that are frequent visitors to Durban are particularly vulnerable to sudden blasts of wind on the beam. Wary shipmasters will have their hands firmly on the bow thruster controls as their ships leave the port.