Oil leak: Global safety rules averted date of disaster

On Saturday at around 4am, two ships had a date with disaster when they collided off

Kamarajar Port

. Luck ily for them, and for Chennai, recent stringent global rules in ship construction ensured there was no dumping of thousands of tonnes of oil from the fully loaded tanker,

Dawn Kanchipuram

, into the Chennai coast.

On Saturday morning, the bulbous bow of

BW Maple

rammed into Dawn Kanchipuram. In the past, the bulbous bow -a protrusion made of solid steel on the front part of the ship -of a quarter-kilometre long LPG carrier sailing at nine knots, or 17kmhr, would have pierced open a cargo hold of an oil tanker during a collision. But global maritime rules have ensured that Kanchipuram, built in 1996 in Korea, is a `double-hull' ship. There was a void space that was acting as a buffer and protecting the cargo tanks.

Maple's bulbous bow plunged into the void space but stopped ahead of the cargo tank. “The perpendicular collision created a hole of 7m to 8m diameter in the underwater void space,“ said Subash Kumar, former deputy chair man of Chennai Port Trust and presently advisor to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. Maple's flare -curved front of the ship with a sharp edge -pierced the above-water portion of Kanchipuram near its deck, leaving a triangular breach of up to 3m on a water ballast tank. The flare also cut into a crew cabin.

BW Maple had discharged its cargo and had been instructed by the port authorities to clear the channel. Its pilot -the navigating expert who knows the port well enough to bring the ship in and take it out -had left.And the ship was moving towards full oceangoing speed.

Dawn Kanchipuram, carrying nearly 45,000 tonnes of petroleum products, was entering the port. It was on `manoeuvring mode'. In shipping parlance, this refers to entering or leaving a port, or passage through nar row channels, where caution must be the watchword. This mode typically means all navigating crew and officers are present and standby, so are all engineers and engine crew at the engine room.

Out at sea, four pairs of eyes look out for collision -one using the naked eye and using ship lights to gauge the position and direction of ships nearby , especially during the dark, and another monitoring equipment such as the ra dar. Having all hands at work helps to ensure that there are extra pairs of nimble hands and alert eyes to keep a watch and operate the ship so collision risks are minimised. Yet, the two ships collided.

Subhash Kumar says it is clear that there was lack of communication between Kanchipuram and Maple. “Wrong action was taken when they realised they were on collision course. Both the captains, and the pilot, too, may need to be blamed. But how much blame, we will have to find out,“ he said. Subash Kumar added there was no engine or steering failure, indicating that human error caused the accident.

Maple has suffered little damage and will soon resume its duties. Kanchipuram will be emptied at the Ennore Port so its underwater hole rises above water, making it accessible for repair.