SS Wafra oil spill
P1
IMO: 5384580
The Wafra was a Liberian oil tanker with a survey of approximately 36 697 GRT. On 1 March 1971 he was stranded on the South African Cape Agulhas and about 27000-65000 tons of crude oil leaked into the sea.
History
Ship and cargo
The ship was delivered in 1956 with a survey of 27,400 GRT of a shipyard in Nagasaki and brought to a size of 36 697 GRT in August 1970.
The turbine tankers belonged to the time of the accident and the Getty Tankers Limited and has been operated in a long-term charter of Getty Oil Corporation. Getty Oil, in turn, had for five years rented the tanker on 7 April 1970 in a time charter to the United Steamship Corporation ( United). United gave the ship for successive trips within a one-year sub-charter of the Overseas Tankship Corp.. (Overseas) on. In January 1971 Overseas rented the Wafra in an orally negotiated sub-charter to Chevron to carry a full load of crude oil from Ras Tanura to Cape Town. Chevron made a verbal agreement with Texaco on a each hälftige Chevron / Texaco charter. The ship sailed out with an oil charge, which belonged to the half of the Chevron Oil Sales Co. and the other half Texaco Export, Inc..
The stranding
The ship suffered on February 27, 1971 at 6:30 clock in the morning at the position 35 ° 0 ' S, 20 ° 2' O- 3520.033333333333 before the Cape Agulhas (Cape Agulhas ) a fraction of a raw water line, or a seawater pump. His engine room was then filled with water and made it thus unable to maneuver. The first ship of the Russian turbine tankers passing Gdynia was asked for tug assistance, it refused to be too complicated, but brought later in the day a tow line to the South African motor vessel Pongola, which was about seven nautical miles from Cape Agulhas. Much of the crew of the Wafra up on the remaining aboard captain and helmsman left the ship before the tanker was taken in tow. When the towing connection broke later in the day, the towing connection could not be restored, whereupon the Wafra drove around 5:30 clock on March 1 on the Agulhasriff around five nautical miles located off the Cape. Due to the soil damage occurring there both the six - port cargo tanks as well as the six middle cargo tanks were injured and some of the existing crude oil from the variety Arabian crude cargo began to flow into the sea.
Salvage and sinking
The Hamburg ship-handling, shipping and salvage company, the salvage tug Oceanic was at his station in Durban, took several days before they could negotiate a salvage contract with fixed daily rates without obstructing all responsibilities with the South African government and the shipping company and the insurance of the tanker. On March 8, succeeded the Oceanic to pull the distressed vessel off the reef. To eliminate further pollution of the coast, the tanker was about 200 nautical miles towed far out to sea and there on March 12 by targeted rocket attacks by fighter jets of the South African Air Force in position 36 ° 57 ' S, 20 ° 42 ' E -36.9520.7 sunk. A helicopter tow following the solvent and sprayed on the leaked oil to prevent its spread. The shipping company of Oceanic later received for the eight -day working a salvage award of 570,000 DM
Follow
Approximately 27,000 tons of crude oil reached directly into the sea, about half after the stranding and the rest on the tow for Versenkungsort. The oil formed a about 30 miles long and five miles wide oil film. Around 6,000 tonnes of oil polluted the coastal strip between Cape Agulhas and Struisbaai the. More than 1216 penguins were oiled and mostly died. However, a protective fence prevented the death of a large number of penguins on Dyer Iceland.
The owners of the oil cargo brought before the United States Court of Appeals for a compensation case against the owner and operator of the Wafra. This began on 12 December 1977 in the second instance and it was decided on March 2, 1978.