An Eventful Maritime Year Closes

CAPE TOWN - Friday sees the closing of an interesting year for the shipping world. It included the huge containership Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal, an incident that highlighted the fragility of the Suez route, and could have been much worse had the vessel not been refloated relatively quickly.

She could have cracked amidships, a possible scenario as her bow was resting on one bank and the stern on the other, creating enormous stresses on her hull that would have been subjected to tidal rise and fall.

Despite the relatively short blockage of the canal, factories and assembly lines that relied on consignments of parts arriving “just in time” for their manufacturing processes, were compromised as hundreds of ships queued on both sides of the canal.

A longer blockage could have had devastating effects on industries and supply chains in Europe and Asia.

Although that was the most serious recent incident, other large containerships have grounded or caught fire in the canal in the last few years, and, as even larger containerships enter service, it will not be the last incident, despite measures taken by the canal authorities to prevent a recurrence.

Covid continues to inhibit shipping operations, particularly for crews’ shore leave – a vital part of shipboard life that few shore-wallers understand – and for crew changes.

Although many countries have made special arrangements to repatriate crewmembers going home on leave and for their replacements to join the ships, some crewmembers remain at sea long past their relief dates, with all the ensuing problems such as fatigue and disillusionment with seagoing careers. Again, many shore-wallers – including some in certain immigration departments around the world – fail to understand the need for seafarers to go home at the conclusion of their contracts. Imagine if air crews received the same indifferent treatment!

Of course the cruise sector has suffered immense damage over the past year, and as a resurrection seemed possible, the new viral strain swept through the world.

The highly anticipated call by the German cruise ship Europa in Cape Town a few weeks ago was a damp squib as tours were cancelled and many passengers flew home when the new covid strain took hold.

Queen Mary 2 arrived in New York last week with 10 cases of covid aboard and one can only imagine the treatment that passengers received from the US immigration hawks.

The timely arrival of Amsol’s new anchor-handling tug Umkhuseli was another highlight in the year.

She proved her worth in several incidents, three of which occurred parallel to operations in which the seasoned standby tug SA Amandla was involved. Thus her presence also confirmed the necessity for two powerful tugs to be stationed along the coast.

Spin-off from the Glasgow conference will see shipping move increasingly towards cleaner fuel – and towards more widespread measures such as exhaust scrubbers to minimise carbon and sulphur emissions - and more energy-efficient machinery, which in themselves are laudable goals. In the end, however, consumers will pay for the consequent – and possibly substantial - increase in shipping costs, something not generally mentioned during such conferences where the green lobby targets shipping more, it seems, than other forms of transport.

And with coal apparently consigned to stay beneath the ground, what will happen to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who are employed in the coal sector?

Will there be wholesale retrenchments among the Witbank miners, railway folks who move coal to Richards Bay, shiploader operators, even ships’ agents, and collier crews whose ships might be laid up?

And will the carbon footprint of wind turbines and solar panels – from the processing of raw materials and construction to their shipment and installation - be so much less than that of conventional forms of energy?

Perhaps climate-change zealots should think through their campaigns to all possible conclusions before taking to the streets or making rousing conference speeches!

As the seasonal surge in container traffic on Asian trades occurred, delays in berthing in the congested US west coast ports brought long queues of idle containerships, spiking global freight rates and causing delays in the delivery of Christmas goodies, as well as delays to the more important vital supplies to factories and assembly lines.

Simultaneously, bulk freight rates also spiraled, heralding a good year-end for shipowners but consigning consumers to pay more for many imported items either directly or through tariff hikes, such as increases in the cost of power-generation.

At the year’s end, South Africa lost its seat on the board of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), a major loss caused seemingly by insufficient lobbying to retain a vital, leading presence in that august body.

Perhaps those totally destructive July riots also prompted IMO delegates to write-off South Africa as unworthy of international maritime leadership.

Despite several gloomy parts to 2021, some green shoots did appear, and in the latter vein, I extend my best wishes to all readers for a very happy, healthy and stimulating 2022.

brian@capeports.co.za

Ingpen is a freelance journalist and the author of nine maritime books.

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