South Africa’s ETV ‘SA Amandla’ has completed a 4,220-mile round trip in hurricane force winds to recover a disabled fishing vessel in mid-South Atlantic.
More details have emerged of a rescue tow carried out by South Africa’s ETV earlier in 2020 which went largely unnoticed at the time but subsequently reveal the challenges faced by such vessels’ professional crews and the high specifications required by ETVs typified by the now 44-year old iconic SA Amandla.
African Marine Solutions (AMSOL) is contracted to South Africa’s National Department of Transport for provision of emergency response services including the ETV and was sub-subcontracted by Resolve Marine to assist the 53m long South Korean trawler Kostar which had lost its rudder around 2,000 miles south west of Cape Town. The crew were transferred to another fishing vessel in extreme weather conditions and SA Amandla set out immediately for the stricken vessel.
Saying that Kostar was taken in tow and redelivered to Cape Town (its cargo of fish intact and still able to be exported) hardly gives justice to the operation, described by AMSOL as ‘one of the toughest tows ever undertaken’ by SA Amandla in weather conditions ‘of the washing machine type’ with wind speeds over Beaufort force 12 and swells up to 14m.
With no rudder, steering of Kostar was erratic resulting in the trawler’s fairlead collapsing and a jury tow having to be rigged which lasted well for SA Amandla’s journey back to Cape Town, a round trip lasting 25 days, 15 of which was with the tow covering a distance of 2,146 miles.
AMSOL reported that SA Amandla ‘built for these conditions, dealt with it well although the foredeck was constantly submerged’. In the time-honoured tradition, the tug’s master Captain Russel Duse was welcomed back with the daily newspaper and as the zero-alcohol policy precluded the obligatory bottle of whisky, was presented with a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ bunch of South African Proteas by AMSOLS’s offshore services marine manager David Murray who commented: ‘This project just confirms the strong relationships between fellow ISU members, and although competitiveness is generally the name of the game, projects like this are a good example of where two ISU salvors can and will work together to the benefit of the client.’
By Peter Barker
