A ship that had been stranded off the New South Wales coast in wild weather, sparking fears of an environmental catastrophe, has been safely returned to port.
The MV Portland Bay, a 170-metre cargo ship registered in Hong Kong, became stranded after experiencing engine failure off Garie beach in the Royal national park, south of Sydney, on Monday morning.
Wild seas made it impossible to fix the damage, and threatened to push the ship ashore.
But it had been able to anchor safely off Cronulla beach from Monday evening despite breaking free from towing cables attached to tugs which had been attempting to move it further from shore.
The ship docked safely in Port Botany about 2pm, supported by a pilot boat and four tugs, the Port Authority of NSW confirmed in a statement.
Shot of #PortlandBay coming in flanked by tugs to safe port. @abcsydney @AMSA_News @NSWMaritime @MarineCommand @TransportforNSW @DCN_Editor @9NewsAUS @bencubby @7NewsSydney @NewsC10 @dailytelegraph @SBSNews #PortBotany pic.twitter.com/4eVMlewwNf
— Port Authority of NSW (@portauthnsw) July 6, 2022
“Port Authority has confirmed all final safety and technical checks [are] complete, and the vessel has been brought into safety at Port Botany.
“Protecting the people involved and the marine environment has been the priority through this multiagency response.”
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) had issued a legal direction to the master of a ship and the salvage team to move it to a berth in Botany Bay before more bad weather forecast for Thursday hit.
In a statement, AMSA said the tugs helped prevent a maritime disaster. The 21 crew who were onboard throughout the saga were safe.
“As always, we want to ensure that the crew are safe and the vessel can be made sea worthy while the next east coast low passes through the region,” Mark Morrow, the AMSA executive director of response, said.
“We will continue to work with the NSW Port Authority to ensure this happens as soon as possible.
“Those smaller tugs have done amazing work over the past 24-36 hours ensuring the stricken vessel did not drift onto some of Sydney’s most pristine coastline.”
AMSA issued a further statement after the ship had docked, saying it would send two inspectors and one specialist lead investigator on board to “assess the vessel’s mechanical safety and compliance”.
“While the vessel is berthed at Botany Bay it will be required to undertake all necessary repairs before leaving port. The berthing of the MV Portland Bay follows the legal direction issued by AMSA to the vessel.”
