"Beached ship awaits judgment on Solomon

When the World Discoverer grounded on a cruise through the Solomons, it seemed a difficult but not impossible job to free her. Wayne Flower in Melbourne reports on how it all went wrong

The stricken World Discoverer sits beached on reef in the Solomon Islands and will remain so until salvage efforts are no longer
frustrated, her P&I club has stated.

A SALVAGE operation off the Solomon Islands turned into nine weeks of terror and mayhem for Norton White lawyer and salvage expert Stephen Harper.

Mr Harper told an Australian Chamber of Shipping lunch in Melbourne of the "nightmare" efforts to save a cruise vessel amid civil war in the Solomons.

On April 30 this year, the 70 m World Discoverer struck a rock while transiting the Sandfly Passage in the Solomon Islands. Some 110 passengers were on board, including 52 US Marine veterans heading to pay their respects to fallen Second World War comrades in Honiara.

A 42-cm hole in the vessel's bottom forced the master to wedge the stricken ship between reefs in Roderick Bay off Sandfly Passage in central province in the islands.

The ship came to rest with a 40° list to starboard and about 6,000 tonnes of water on board. A host of nations, including Australia, answered distress calls, but the calls were not acknowledged by the Solomon Islands.

Eventually, help arrived and the passengers were ferried back to Honiara. The salvage operation was ready to begin, but did not start well. The first locally-chartered vessel broke down en route to the site.

The operation was conducted under a Lloyd's Open Form, but was amended to incorporate the Scopic clause, with average expenses running at about $20,000-$30,000 a day. "It was a bloody difficult job. Logistically it
was an utter nightmare," said Mr Harper.

The casualty was 32 nautical miles from Honiara, itself not an ideal logistical base.

Local vessels, chartered to ferry salvage crew and experts to the casualty, were unreliable due to unseaworthiness. Communications were almost non-existent. Faxes, mobile phones, email and even satellite phones were practically useless.

The rescue team managed,against all adversity, to patch and repair the tear in the vessel and pump water to enable her to be refloated.

It was about four weeks into the rescue that real trouble struck.Twenty-five pirates armed with semi-automatic weapons raided the ship, pillaging whatever they could carry.
The following day, the islanders occupied the ship, claiming it was now theirs.

This process was repeated several times. The pirates would attack and the islanders arrived to plunder the remains.When it was clear that local authorities could not intervene because ofcivil unrest, Mr Harper was forced to take the radical step of hiring a"community relations adviser", who was best remembered as resembling Jean Claude Van Damme.

The hired help was more heavily armed than the pirates.It comprised elements from the Rapid Response Unit of the Royal Solomon
Island Police Force and proved extremely effective in pressuring the islanders into returning the stolen goods as well as dealing with the pirates.

Just when it seemed like the vessel could be salved, chaos broke out in Honiara.There was no rule, no law and no press to convey to the world what was happening.Worse still, word was out that 60 armed men were on their way to forcibly take the $3m they believed was being given to the islanders in
compensation for reef damage.

The mission was aborted on June 8. Most of the salvage gear was left behind in the haste to escape.

The World Discoverer was abandoned once again and still sits beached on the reef in Roderick Bay.The withdrawal ended nine weeks of desperate efforts to salvage the vessel and left Mr Harper and the salvage crew feeling somewhat bitter.

It is thought locals have since died on board due to large pockets of gas and other hazards.It is a potential environmental disaster waiting to happen, Mr Harper
said.

The vessel is loaded with about 250 tonnes of marine gas oil which will eventually spill into the ocean and spread down Sandfly Passage and into adjoining islands.

The ship's owner and P&I club have abandoned the wreck due to salvage efforts being constantly "frustrated".
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