Beached bulker pins hopes on giant chopper

RAY SMUTS TO THE best of salvage expert Godfrey Needham’s recollection, only three ships have been successfully refloated off the South African coast in recent decades, yet he is optimistic the beached bulk carrier Kiperousa will add to the plus rate. The hitherto unsuccessful attempt to free the
14 921 ton bulk carrier from her reefer perch off Bhega, near Hamburg in the Eastern Cape, was lent a fresh impetus last week (July 8) after a series of misfortunes – damaged salvage tugs, inclement weather and the like - with the arrival of a “Goliath” helicopter. The Russian-manufactured M126 ‘chopper’, one of a pair based in Uganda and chartered by Greek salvage company Tsavrilis, is capable of lifting 20 tonnes and tasked with removing the Kiperousa’s cargo, 6 000 tonnes of huge West African logs. The plan is for the M126 to drop these a few kilometres from the stricken vessel, for onward road transportation to the port of East London, enabling the lightened vessel to come free after which she will be towed for drydocking in the Buffalo City. “We’re planning to take everything off the Kiperousa but might not get to that point because she is likely to float off first,” says Needham, who as director of Cape Town-based Offshore Maritime Services, has been appointed salvage master for the operation. “The theory is that it will take six days to remove what is necessary; the fact is it will probably take double that and our target for the ship to move is July 20.”