Watchkeeper: Progress on places of refuge

There are some encouraging signs about the vexed issue of places of refuge, at least in European waters, with progress being made on new operational guidelines for EU member states. These, which are being developed by the European Maritime Safety Agency, with plenty of useful input from industry and elsewhere take a pragmatic and practical stance on the need for shelter and facilities to be provided for damaged ships, not least to prevent their situation worsening.

According to the International Salvage Union, which has been working closely with the participants, an important principle of “no rejection without inspection” has been agreed by the European Commission. This would preclude member states from a summary rejection of a request for a place of refuge or entry into the waters of a member state and require that a proper technical inspection of the casualty should be carried out before a decision on granting (or rejection) a request. It is hoped that the guidelines can be finalised by the end of this year.

It is hoped that these guidelines, once they are in place, can be used as a “model” for the same sort of procedure to be adopted by the International Maritime Organisation, thus “internationalising” the procedures. Just last week one of the regional containerships operating in East Asian waters suffered a severe fire, recalling the long and tortuous saga of the chemical tanker Maritime Maisie, which for several months was forced to stay in the open sea after refuge was denied in a number of East Asian countries.

In the latest casualty, the geared containership Kamala was last weekend reported as being on fire 400km to the west of Kagoshima in Japan, in the East China Sea, while on a voyage from Indonesia to South Korea. Aerial photographs showed the ship well alight amidships, with a fierce fire burning in the collapsed remains of a four-high deck stack in a moderate sea and weather. It could well be that salvors will eventually be looking for shelter to stabilise the condition of the vessel.

While the EU Guidelines are regarded as marking some real progress in this vexed question, the real test must be with their public acceptability when “push comes to shove” and there is a seriously damaged ship in the offing, with salvors requesting a place of refuge. Local and even national politics tend to come into play in such circumstances and rational or even technical arguments are sometimes ignored.

Where the new guidelines may succeed where other schemes have failed is their insistence on openness and transparency about the reality of the situation, along with the use of trusted and expert independent technical assessments so that the inhabitants of the potentially affected coast do not feel that their interests are unrepresented. Trust and transparency may well then produce a winning formula that can, in time, be exported internationally.
Source: BIMCO