TIME BOMB AT SEA

FEB 2001 – 7’17’’

AERIALS OF CASTOR & CRACK

She’s known as the leper of the sea, a powder keg full of petrol stranded on the high seas. These pictures exclusively released to Channel 4 News show the huge crack on the deck of the Castor which has turned her into a death trap. Petrol fumes fill the air and, even the ship’s telephone has been turned off in case the slightest electrical spark causes her to explode.

GRAPHIC

It was on December 23rd that the Castor left Romania bound for Nigeria carrying 30,000 tons of unleaded petrol.

Three days later off Morocco she ran into a storm which lasted for several days.

By December 31st the ship had developed a crack over 20 metres long. After she moved towards the coast the Moroccan authorities stopped her and ordered her further out to sea.

By the 5th of January Spain and Gibraltar had joined Morocco in banning the Castor. By now the crew had noticed a strong smell of petrol and abandoned ship.

PTC JONATHAN RUGMAN

This is the nightmare scenario the shipping community has long feared, a highly toxic ship crashing around on the high seas with no country prepared to give her shelter and until the international maritime community resolves how to deal with situations like this it could happen again anywhere.

CASTOR & TUG AT SEA

The Castor’s now under tow from the world’s biggest tugboat, destination uncertain. Algeria and Greece have also banned her from their territorial waters fearing environmental catastrophe if she sinks or explodes. A small amount of petrol was transferred a week ago but since these pictures were filmed force 10 gales have made the operation impossible.

COASTGUARD CONTROL ROOM

Speaking by ship’s radio to me at a Spanish coastguard station the ship’s salvage master says he fears the worst..

V/O NAM HALFWEEG, CASTOR SALVAGE MASTER

If we are forced to become a maritime leper, in other words…

if we are forced to keep going in circles around the Mediterranean for an indefinite period…

eventually the ship will deteriorate its condition and break up….

We are not asking for the vessel to be taken into port…

all we are asking is a place of relative shelter in the lee of a storm.

GVs CARTAGENA

Cartagena in southern Spain is monitoring the Castor’s movements but was among the first ports to turn her away. Ships just like the Castor in age and build enter this port all the time but inviting a charge of hypocrisy Spain now insists the Castor must stay at least 30 miles offshore.

SYNC JOSE LUIS LOPEZ-SORS GONZALES

HEAD OF MERCHANT SHIPPING, SPAIN

The salvage company wants me to risk my coast and my people in a highly touristic are and for what, for their profits! ….. What are they trying to save? Their cargo!

Q: If the Castor sinks tonight will that be on your conscience?

A: If the Castor blew up in Cartagena, now THAT would be on my conscience.

GVs BEACH

But locals in Cartagena told us they’d ,much rather help the Castor’s 50 salvage engineers rather than keeping them perilously far from shore. And the ship’s Greek owner points out that she’s far more likely to sink in rough seas than in these calmer waters.

CAPTAIN MICHAEL REPPAS

HEAD OF SAFETY, ATHENIAN SEA CARRIERS

The worst case scenario is the ship to break into pieces and sink so we have the cargo trapped at the bottom. And if you have the cargo trapped at the bottom of the sea the damage of the cargo, the effect of the environment will be continuous.

UNDERWATER SHIP SURVEY OF CASTOR

But if 24,000 tons of gasoline do end up sinking to the bottom will it really be Spain’s fault? This is the Castor’s 24 year old hull filmed by ship inspectors just over a year ago. The ship was passed as seaworthy, a finding the inspection company stands by, yet Spanish surveyors who boarded her after she cracked claim she was substandard.

ARCHIVE ERIKA / SHIP / BIRDS / ARMY

DATE:

Another tanker, the Erika, sank off Brittany just over a year ago after she’d passed her safety inspection. Half a million seabirds were killed by her leaking cargo. As the French army scraped oil off the beaches France led European calls for safety checks to be tightened.

TANKER SHOTS

France also wants single hulled ships like the Erika and the Castor to be withdrawn from service as the Americans have been doing for a decade. BP Amoco and Exxon Mobil now refuse to charter old ships to prevent oil spillages. Yet the Castor’s owner insists she is safe for hire.

CAPTAIN MICHAEL REPPAS

HEAD OF SAFETY, ATHENIAN SEA CARRIERS

Q: If BP are not prepared to carry oil or gas on your ship why should anybody else carry it?

A: In order to assess the risk of a ship you have to assess from all angles – age is not the only measure for the quality of a ship.

Q: But your ship would not be allowed to go in American waters would it?

A: She would not be allowed in American waters on the basis that the ship is a single hull.

Q: So why the hell should you be allowed to approach European waters?

A: Because we believe that the ship is sound, well-maintained and very well looked after

Q: Better safe than sorry. Surely, we should have the same standards as the Americans

A: We have the same standards.

ARCHIVE GALAPAGOS

DATE

It was another single hulled ship which recently ran aground off the Galapagos islands. And not surprisingly Ecuador has joined calls for a ban.

EXT/INT I.M.O.

The London based International Maritime Organisation has plans for a gradual phaseout of single hulled tankers, but countries which make money from cheap shipping stand in the way of radical reform.

There are also proposals for new rules obliging coastal states giving shelter to ships in distress, shelter the Castor badly needs, yet the country drafting those proposals is Spain, and a dangerous ship like the Castor is a political football she’d rather not touch.

SYNC JOSE LUIS LOPEZ-SORS GONZALES

HEAD OF MERCHANT SHIPPING, SPAIN

Somebody is putting the ball in my area. But I’m not intending to platy the football. Please put the ball on the other side, not here.

CASTOR AT SEA

So what of the Castor now? Algerian gunboats have shooed the ship away from their shores and her salvage master thinks she will sink before reaching Cyprus, the only country prepared to take her in. Any port in a storm they say, but not for the Castor, Europe’s most unloved ship.

Jonathan Rugman Channel Four News Cartagena Spain.

ENDS