Environment ahead of Insurer's Cheque Book

by Sail-World.com on 7 May 2007 On Friday a 50ft luxury multimillion dollar motor cruiser ploughed onto the rocks at Mackay Harbour on the North Queensland Coast. In scenes reminiscent of a high budget action film, the huge vessel powered at speed up the rocky outside north wall of the harbour entrance.

Local fisherman Paul McMahon said ‘it made a thunderous boom when it went up the rocks. It looked just like an action movie. It was crazy.’

Police said that the cause of the crash appears to have been mechanical or electronic failure.

The vessel ‘Eropaks’ had just been returned to the water that afternoon after work in a local shipyard.

Early reports indicate that the electronic controls on the boat may have failed as the boat was about to enter Mackay Harbour on Friday afternoon.
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John Kraft from Mackay Port Authority explained what happened after the boat hit the rocks.

‘One of the duty port officers rang me and told me that a vessel had gone aground…We put our normal marine incident plan into place. We contacted Vessel Traffic Services and the Harbour Master…’

‘Cranes were brought in to support the stern of the vessel and the rescue team did what they could to stabilize the vessel.’

The late model Dynacraft was insured for $1.8 million with insurer Club Marine.

Phil Johnson, Club Marine’s National Claims Manager, confirmed that one of their assessors quickly arrived at the incident site. ‘Our assessor was on the spot within minutes of it happening.’

The Club Marine assessor, Maritime Safety and the Port Authority had a difficult decision to make. The assessor knew that if they brought in larger cranes and other equipment they may be able to lift the boat off the sea wall, thus saving his company a potential seven figure sum. With the boat recovered more or less intact, the claim would be reduced from total loss to salvage and repair costs.

But there were other considerations weighing on his mind. With the flood tide and the 20 knot winds on their way, there was a good chance that the large boat would break apart if it remained on the rocks. This could cause substantial environmental damage through spilled oil, diesel and debris. There was also a risk that the boat could become a navigation hazard to other ships.

‘We collectively decided it was a safer and better option to bring it around the corner and let it settle on the bottom instead of smashing to pieces’ explained John Kraft.

‘So they brought a tug in to tow it around the corner, inside the harbour. Where they let it sink.’

The boat is now resting on the harbour bottom, safely out of the way of other shipping.
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Club Marine’s Phil Johnson said that the total cost of the salvage operation had been estimated at $200,000. He said that he was pleased with the decision to sink the boat rather than risk environmental damage.

‘It costs us a lot of money but also saves the environment with the pollution and clean up if it had of been left on the rocks.’

‘We didn’t want to block the Port of Mackay. It’s a busy shipping port with ships departing and arriving all the time. We were aware that we couldn’t put the port under any extra strain. That was another priority in the operation.’

Phil Johnson is now in the process of organising a salvage operation. ‘As the boat’s currently sunk in Mackay Harbour and we have to salvage the rest of it later this week. We’re co-ordinating that at the present moment. We’ll bring it to the surface later this week….It’s a large boat, so it’s a fairly large operation…’

Club Marine spokesperson Andrew Powell said that the company was extremely pleased with how the incident was handled.

‘Club Marine is the largest leisure marine insurer. So it is able to provide this level of prompt and professional assistance following a major incident at sea, with a network of over 850 assessors, salvors, repairers, naval architects and other professional on stand by 24/7 to respond to our call.’

Once salvage operations have been completed investigators will be able to provide further information on the cause of the accident.

For more information on Club Marine www.clubmarine.com.au