200731 Drifting on to fishing nets

I write of an incident off Cabo Espartel on the Moroccan side of the entrance to Gibraltar Straits. The vessel was a product tanker in ballast, en-route to Gibraltar for off-loading slops. When the vessel was about 20 miles off Cabo Espartel, the main engine failed and the engineers began opening up the defective unit. It was close to sunset when this happened and the vessel was not in anchorable depths. Not under command (NUC) signals were displayed and a general alert was sent out to forewarn traffic. The sea conditions were slight and the vessel continued to drift in a southeasterly direction towards the Moroccan coast while engine repair work continued. Around midnight, a long line of weakly lit buoys came into view, indicating the existence of drift nets.

The fixes obtained since the breakdown indicated that the nets lay directly in the vessel's drift path. No attending fishing boats that could move the nets out of the way were seen in the vicinity of the drift nets, and unless the main engine was restored quickly, there was a very real possibility of fouling the nets. A conversation with the chief engineer ruled out the early availability of the main engine and the vessel was steadily closing in on the nets. The echo sounder showed no bottom at 100 fathoms. We tried to alter the drift angle by rapidly putting the helm over from port to starboard, but to little avail. The long drift net with flashing marker lights were getting nearer and brighter and a radar plot showed a CPA of zero.

In a desperate attempt to avoid fouling, the port anchor with seven shackles of chain was walked back into the sea. This acted as a drogue, and considerably slowed down the vessels drift. Simultaneously, and rudder was moved to hard-a-port and, to our great relief, the drift net slowly began to draw astern and was cleared about two cables off. It was nothing short of a miracle that no fouling took place, and the vessel was able to resume the voyage when the engines were finally restored in the early hours of the morning.

Editor's note: The master and crew of this vessel deserve praise for practising good seamanship by using the anchor and cable as a drogue and preventing what would have been a potential calamity to both the vessel and local fishermen.