Keeping an eye on the bad guys
SA Navy’s new patrol boats will be most welcome, but let’s buy those planes now
THE SUEZ Canal had record transits during 2018 when over 18 000 ships (about 49 a day) passed through the canal. Of those, containerships represented the most common type, with containers accounting for more than half the transit cargo.
Oil is another major cargo moving through the canal as the number of Suezmax tankers (those able to pass through the canal fully laden) has increased over the years, enabling direct shipments via the canal from the Arabian Gulf to Europe and from North Africa or the Black Sea to Asia.
The satellite plot of ships off the South African coast indicates that between 60 and 80 ships pass Cape Agulhas each day, a number that will grow as the west African and Brazilian oilfields increase production in the wake of the slowly increasing oil price.
With more ships off the coast, wider surveillance is needed from both navigational safety and security viewpoints. Without adequate surveillance and aerial support, though, disasters can happen, rescue operations can’t be fully effective, and maritime criminal activities can thrive.
Captain Kevin Tate recalls a particularly harrowing experience when master of the salvage tug Smit Amandla. The French vlcc Algarve had alerted South African authorities to a capsized yacht hull – minus her keel – that her vigilant officer-of-the-watch had sighted about 520 nautical miles off East London.
When his tug was ordered to the scene, Captain Tate thought that it might have been the hull of the yacht Moquini, which had disappeared without trace during a race from Mauritius to Durban six months earlier.
The yacht owner’s wife had been concerned as, for two days, no communications came from Moquini, then about 66 nautical miles south of Madagascar.
Although a short unlocated distress signal had been received at the time and later confirmed to be from Moquini, about six valuable hours of searching for the missing yacht and her crew had been lost because of an inexplicable delay in the official search aircraft taking off for the area of her last known position.
Even then, after a search area of some 28 105km2 had been covered on the first day and although the search continued for five days, there was no
trace of the yacht. Yet she was sighted from the tanker months later!
In contrast to the delay in the aircraft taking off, the tug sailed within 22 minutes of the call-out. En route to the scene, the tug called at Port Elizabeth to embark police divers who, once the tug had located the yacht – minus her keel – searched the hull but found nothing. The salvors righted her, patched her hull and did other temporary repairs, before Smit Amandla began to tow her to Durban, the yacht’s home port.
Had the air force C130 that conducted the search been fitted with the latest surveillance equipment, the yacht might at least have been located soon after her disappearance, and ships could have been directed to the area to search for the missing yachtsmen.
While I have beaten the aerial surveillance drum frequently, a significant keel-laying ceremony last week at the important Damen Shipyard in Cape Town heralded an improved coastal patrol capability for the South African Navy.
The ceremony marked the start of construction of the first of three multi-mission inshore patrol vessels that form part of the navy’s Project Biro. These 20-knot functional vessels will certainly be useful along the coast, and particularly in the Mozambique Channel, a highly strategic area in combating maritime criminal activities, including serious smuggling of drugs and weapons, as well as poaching of fish stocks, human trafficking and deliberate oil pollution.
In addition, if reports emanating from Mozambique are correct, the spectre of IS and its equally evil offshoots might have gained a foothold in that country, a serious menace that could spread southwards, threatening our north-eastern coast. Thus patrols need to be more intense and those aboard patrolling craft need to be extremely vigilant.
Given the renewed interest in oil and gas exploration off the coast – the Brulpadda Field south-west of Mossel Bay is the latest promising gas strike – the new patrol vessels might help to ensure the security of such vital economic activities.
However, three small vessels will not suffice, given the massive ocean area for which South Africa is responsible. Although they would have to be larger and more expensive, vessels with a helicopter capability will be far more effective for search and rescue operations, and for countering modern maritime evils.
But the best solution would be to provide six sophisticated and dedicated maritime patrol aircraft, on permanent standby for immediate take-off in emergencies.
Perhaps the baddies would take note and move their nefarious activities elsewhere, while mariners aboard ships off the coast or deep in the Southern Ocean would have a better chance of survival should something go bang in the night.
Let’s buy those planes now!
The spectre of IS and its evil offshoots could be a serious menace that could spread southwards. Thus patrols need to be more intense and vigilant