ONLY in shipping would the best available option left on the table be to tow a smouldering containership through the Indian Ocean’s monsoon season.

But that is where the salvors of Wan Hai 503 find themselves.

The containership, which caught fire on June 9 and burned for nearly two months, is finally on the move to a port of refuge.

According to Wan Hai, that port is still under consideration, although the vessel’s AIS data suggests Jebel Ali, in the UAE, will be the vessel’s destination.

The stricken containership was first towed away from Indian waters, ostensibly to minimise environmental damage.

Sri Lanka was seen a viable alternative, but authorities there declined a request of safe harbour too.

The tow ropes were attached again and Wan Hai 503 was moved on.

The fire was fully extinguished by August 5, and the vessel’s structural integrity and stability deemed fit for it to be towed. A route was planned using weather-assessment technology, Wan Hai said.

That route is directly through the Arabian Sea, for a distance that will most likely exceed 1,500 nautical miles, during the monsoon season.

Marine salvors are extremely good at what they do and will have made every possible consideration before deciding that Wan Hai 503 was safe enough to move.

But there are plenty of ports within a few days sailing distance that have the capability to receive a vessel of Wan Hai 503’s size and condition. They would surely offer a safer option than the one currently being taken.

As the UK Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention told me in July, nothing left damaged at sea gets miraculously better over time.

Sri Lankan authorities might well point to the X-Press Pearl (IMO: 9875343) casualty, which sent billions of plastic nurdles spilling all over the island’s coastline, killing wildlife and resulting in a year-long fishing ban.

But that vessel, too, was denied refuge after it identified a leak of nitric acid from one of its containers, from Colombo as well as Hamad and Hazira.

One can understand why politicians might be reticent to receive a stricken vessel. Voters will not take kindly to a catastrophic pollution event, especially when the images of oil-saturated wildlife are so distressing.

After all, why should it be their beaches that get covered in plastic or fuel oil?

But as Henning said, once a casualty happens, there are no more good options left on the table.

The job then becomes about choosing the least worst option, both for salvors and for littoral states affected.

Wan Hai 503 will hopefully arrive in the Middle East without incident, and this chapter can finally be closed; though not for the families of the four seafarers that remain missing.

But should it not, there will rightfully be many asking why this option was taken when there were plenty of better ones left on the table.

Joshua Minchin
Senior reporter, Lloyd’s List

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