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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2006 
Beached Ship Finally Freed
 Sandra Dibble - Union-Tribune
| | The cargo ship APL Panama floated yesterday after being freed from sand near the port of Ensenada, where the 874-foot vessel with 1,800 containers from Asia ran aground on Christmas Day. Mexico won't allow the vessel to leave until the beach where it was stranded is restored. (John Gibbins/Union-Tribune) |
Ensenada – It took more than two months of pulling, lifting, blowing and dredging. Yesterday, the APL Panama finally broke free from the sandy beach where it ran aground Christmas Day.
It was 4:40 a.m. and raining steadily when the 874-foot container ship returned to the sea. On shore, a handful of witnesses could see its lights come back on. Aboard ship, fireworks sounded, lit by salvors celebrating the occasion.
Less than three hours later, the vessel was two miles offshore, undergoing inspection of its hull, while bulldozers worked to restore the beach where the ship spent the past 75 days.
“We've overcome the critical point,” said Capt. José Luis Ríos Hernández, Ensenada's harbor master.
Now comes the next challenge: paying the bill. Under general average, the commonly used international legal procedure, the expenses will be shared by the vessel's German owners, Mare Britannicum Schiffahrtsgesellschaft MBH & Co.; APL, the global container transportation company that chartered it; and the numerous cargo interests. The amounts are subject to negotiation.
With its propeller damaged, the APL Panama isn't going anywhere soon. The ship can't leave Ensenada until the salvors, the ship's owners and Mexican government inspectors have examined its condition. In addition, Mexican authorities won't allow the vessel to leave until the beach where it was stranded is restored.
The APL Panama ran aground at 6:12 p.m. Dec. 25, as it prepared to enter the port of Ensenada on a regularly scheduled trans-Pacific run. Mexican authorities attribute the incident to human error on the part of the vessel's Croatian captain, Zupan Branko; sworn testimony suggests he broke port rules by steering the ship into restricted waters without waiting for the guidance of a port pilot.
Over the weeks, the vessel has generated widespread interest in Ensenada, drawing thousands to Playa Conalep, a broad sandy beach off a residential neighborhood south of the port.
An Ensenada taxi driver composed a corrido, a song telling the ship's story, and when residents celebrated a pre-Lenten carnival last month, the APL Panama was featured as a float.
“We got used to seeing it, it belonged to us,” Francisco Ceseña, a 33-year-old Ensenada truck driver, said early yesterday as he arrived to haul away pieces of a temporary rock-and-sand jetty built for the APL Panama. “Now they've gone and stolen it.”
The APL Panama was loaded with more than 1,800 containers when it ran aground, many of them holding electronic components from Asia for factories in Mexico. Nissan, Sony and Panasonic are among the affected companies.
The APL's owners hired Titan Maritime LLC, a Florida-based salvage company, to move the ship, which was trapped in sand parallel to shore. The salvors tried numerous approaches: pulling at its bow with tugboats and hydraulic pulling machines; lifting off more nearly 1,300 containers to lighten its load; moving sand by blowing air through tiny holes drilled into the hull.
Last month, they hired a hopper-dredger vessel, the Francesco di Giorgio, owned by a Belgian company, Jan de Nul. The vessel dug a channel near the APL Panama's bow, about 260 feet wide and 30 feet deep, said Adam Van Cauwenberghe, the company's representative in Mexico City.
Ríos, the harbor master, attributed yesterday's successful refloating to the combination of approaches. Pulling the APL Panama toward the newly dredged channel yesterday were three tugboats and two hydraulic pullers attached directly to the APL Panama.
While the salvage efforts have generated widespread interest – both from curious residents and members of the maritime community worldwide – hardly anyone was there to witness the floating. Ríos was among the few on the beach to see the ship float away in the early-morning darkness.
But word soon got out – around Ensenada, across the United States and across the Atlantic to London and Germany as David Stirling, Titan's Scottish salvage master sent out a terse e-mail message from the APL Panama: “Vessel refloated at 4:40 lt (local time).”
Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com |
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