Reading between the lines there is a degree of bad feeling connected with the drama of stricken cargo ship Eikborg, outside Figueira da Foz harbour.
Yesterday, Paulo Mariano – the vice-president of the Figueira da Foz port community – said the situation was a heartbeat away from tragedy. Within a short space of time, ports captain Paulo Salvado Pires dialled back on this sense of urgency, suggesting the ship – carrying 3,300 tonnes of paper pulp produced by the Altri group and bound for Germany – was only in a situation of ‘relative danger’, given that it still had propulsion and a working bow thruster even if its rudder had been rendered useless (allegedly by the alleged build-up of sand outside the harbour).
Salvado Pires talked of a Portuguese tug boat on the way; the Navy sent a ‘search and rescue’ patrol boat to the scene – but this morning it became clear that Portuguese authorities are not going to be involved in the saving of the Eikborg.
Not just that: Portuguese ports are not open to the Eikborg being towed into them in the event of its successful rescue.
For now, everything is pinned on a tow by a Norwegian-flagged tugboat that will be effecting its rescue, as the seas are expected to be ‘at their worst’ tonight/ early tomorrow morning.
Paulo Mariano has already said openly that he finds the fact that no Portguese port is prepared to accept the boat “incredible”.
The reality is that the Eikborg is far from ‘out of the woods’. It remains around 40 kms off the coast, sometimes described as ‘adrift’, other times “navigating in reverse” in a bid to remain afloat.
If the towing operation is successful, in churning seas and in the pitch darkness tonight, the next steps will be a slow journey towards a Spanish port that is available to accept the boats. This is expected to take ‘several days’, Paulo Mariano has told Antena 1 radio.
The crew meantime is “almost certainly exhausted”, he said. They are all foreigners: the captain is Dutch, and he is accompanied by two Indonesians, one Latvian, one Russian and one Filipino.
The Eikborg is owned by a company belonging to the Dutch Royal Wagenborg group, founded in the late 19th century, which has 160 cargo ships and around 3,000 employers.
The Wagenborg group and Altri are paying the costs of this operation which are understood to be in the region of around €350,000 per day.
Sources: LUSA/ Antena 1
