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On a voyage to nowhere with a catastrophe waiting to happen
PAUL GALLAGHER AS THE Prestige steamed out of the Latvian port of Ventspils just over two weeks ago, the multinational crew on board the massive oil tanker did not even know where they were heading.
The ageing vessel made its way into the Baltic and then the North Sea with the destination of her 70,000 tonnes of fuel still to be determined by the shifting currents of the international oil markets. Apostolus Maguras, the Prestige's Greek captain, had been told to head towards the Strait of Gibraltar and await further instructions.
With 26 years' service, the Japanese-built vessel was 12 years older than the average age of the world's fleet of oil tankers. The Prestige was already sailing on borrowed time.
Under EU legislation drawn up in the last year, any tanker aged over 25 will not be allowed to trade in Europe after 2005. The Prestige's single hull design will also be outlawed under International Maritime Organisation rules, which come into effect from 2015.
Two years ago, the tanker - once known by the somewhat less grand name of Gladys - was examined by BP and rejected for service. However, it was still classed as seaworthy by the American Bureau of Shipping and there were other global businesses willing to take on a cheap, rusting vessel.
For its final voyage, the 44,000-tonne Prestige had been chartered by Crown Resources, a Swiss-based subsidiary of a Russian industrial conglomerate which had loaded the tanker with the oil in the Baltic.
As the vessel sailed towards the English Channel earlier this month, Captain Maguras was contacted by the company and informed of his destination. The cargo was to be taken to Singapore, where fuel oil prices are currently higher than in Europe. Crown Resources had arranged a deal which stood to earn the company an estimated £300,000 profit on the shipment.
The Prestige followed international shipping routes through the Bay of Biscay before rounding Spain's north-west coastline and passing the so-called 'Coast of Death' last Wednesday.
It was here, in a heavy winter storm of force-eight gales and waves reaching 20ft high, that she was holed beneath the waterline and began losing her cargo.
The 26 crew members on board the Prestige, most of them from Romania and the Philippines, were airlifted to safety
Both Spain and Portugal refused permission for the vessel to be towed into port and, as the wrangling went on, salvage experts decided to steer the stricken vessel south and out to sea towards the coast of Africa. Critics denounced the decision as a crude way of shifting the problem from Europe to Africa.
Yet the Prestige was still only 150 miles off the Spanish coast when she split in two and sank into the Atlantic Ocean. Spain has threatened action against those responsible for the spill but the country's biggest problem will be determining who is to blame.
The Prestige is owned by a Greek company, Mare Shipping Inc, based in Liberia, in west Africa, and operated by another Greek company, Universe Maritime Ltd. The tanker was registered in the Bahamas, chartered by a Russian company based in Switzerland and classed as seaworthy in the US.
'There is a morass of liability,' said David Santillo, of campaign group Greenpeace International. 'As soon as there is an incident like this, everyone throws up their hands and tries to deny responsibility.'
He added: 'The shipping world still has a long way to go in terms of governability.'
The complexity of shipping laws were immediately illustrated as Universe Maritime complained that it took 14 hours for the first salvage tug to attach a line and criticised the arrest of Captain Maguras, and setting of bail at 3 million (£1.9 million).
He has been remanded in custody and faces charges of disobeying maritime authorities and harming the environment.
As a fleet of tugs, clean-up vessels and aircraft from around Europe buzzed the site of the sinking, there were immediate warnings that up to 1,000 tankers are still in service on the world's oceans in a similar state to the Prestige - although, under United Nations marine pollution laws, the Prestige was due to leave service by March 2005.
In addition, a package of new maritime rules, dealing with ageing tankers, were drawn up by the European Union, after the Erika polluted 250 miles of the western French coastline in 1999.
This package includes a global phase-out of single-hull tankers by 2015, tougher inspection standards at EU ports and the creation of a European maritime safety agency. Less than half the oil tankers in service are double-hulled vessels, which are less likely to lose their loads in the event of an accident at sea.
Most of the new measures do not come into force until next July, but ministers in Spain and France suggested their EU partners had acted too slowly in banishing the 'floating rust buckets' from Europe's coastlines.
Jacques Chirac, the French president, condemned the inability of officials at both EU and national level to 'fight against the laxity that allows the development of these garbage ships'. He said: 'It is now urgent to take measures that are a bit draconian, serious and severe, even if they conflict with the interests of certain companies.'
Spain has already explicitly accused the British government of failing to prevent the disaster by not inspecting the Prestige during numerous visits to Gibraltar over the past few years. The fact that the vessel had originally been heading for the Strait of Gibraltar before receiving her final orders has heightened suspicions in Spain that the disputed rock has become a safe haven for dangerous ships hoping to circumvent EU regulations.
EU ports have to inspect 25 per cent of all ships that visit them, especially older vessels flying suspect flags, but Britain disputes that the Prestige had been allowed to slip through the net.
Gibraltar's harbour master, James Ferro, said the Prestige had been there only once in the past four years - in June this year - and was anchored offshore for a six-hour refuelling visit during which no inspection could be carried out.
The ship's Greek owners said this was the first time the Prestige had encountered problems and denied the ship had been avoiding EU ports to circumvent stricter safety measures, saying she mainly operated between Russia and the Far East.
The Prestige had last undergone an inspection at an EU port in 1999, at Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and had seen annual inspections since then, the company said. The American Bureau of Shipping, which is responsible for classifying the Prestige, said: 'At the time of the incident, the vessel was in full compliance with all classification requirements, including the IACS [International Association of Classification Societies] Enhanced Survey Programme for older tankers.'
The Prestige passed its last annual inspection in Dubai in May 2002, and its last Classification Special Survey in dry-dock at Guangzhou, China, in May, 2001.
Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's prime minister, who is accused by environmentalists of responding too weakly to the disaster, continues to suggest Gibraltar is to blame and vowed to make whoever is responsible pay for the wrecking of the Prestige. Fishermen in the affected region are demanding to know why the Prestige was towed further out to sea, where it was put at greater risk of being broken up in storms, rather than brought inshore so the damage could be contained.
Spain has issued a diplomatic protest to Greece, Latvia, the US, the Bahamas and Britain over the incident.
Meanwhile, the EU Transport Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, wrote to all EU governments yesterday urging them not to wait until July 2003 to put the new Erika rules in place.
But analysts warned that up to a sixth of the world's oil tanker fleet of 6,000 vessels are as old as the Prestige and will continue to operate beyond the regulation of the EU for years to come.
One salvage expert said: 'There are hundreds of older vessels in the world fleet that are simply ticking time bombs. The fact is they shouldn't be allowed to carry toxic cargoes never mind pass anywhere near pristine coastlines.'
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