Freed cargo ship looking for a tow; APL Panama may soon depart Ensenada
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060330-9999-6m30...
By Sandra Dibble
March 30, 2006
More than three months after it ran aground, the container ship APL Panama's sojourn in Ensenada is drawing to a close.
The 835-foot vessel, anchored four miles offshore since its March 10 refloating, will be brought into port to discharge its remaining 513 containers
before being towed away for repairs, port director Carlos Manuel Jauregui said yesterday.
The vessel's German owners ?are looking for where it might be received,? Jauregui said. With no dry dock available at shipyards on the U.S. West
Coast, the vessel may be sent to China, Jauregui said. The vessel's propeller and hull suffered damage during the grounding.
In the meantime, Ensenada is receiving close to $150,000 from Titan Maritime LLC, the Florida-based salvage company that refloated the vessel, said
Francisco Tarin Perisky, the city's finance secretary.
The payments are compensation for city employees who guarded the beach, keeping away sightseers while salvors worked to float the vessel, and for
damage to city streets. Heavy trucks used those streets to ferry containers to the port after cargo containers were taken off the ship and placed on
the beach.
The funds also will pay for guards to keep people off the beach during the next few months, as civil protection officials have deemed the area unsafe
for swimmers, Tarin said.
The salvage operations, which included the construction of a temporary rock-and-sand jetty and the dredging of a channel offshore, created new
currents and sudden changes in depth that are dangerous, Jaime Nieto, Ensenada's top civil protection official, said.
?We're going to put up barriers and guard it with lifeguards and police,? Nieto said.
The beach, known as Playa Hermosa or Playa Conalep, is one of the city's most popular swimming spots, and officials expect it will take about eight
months to revert to its previous condition.
The timing of the APL Panama's departure remained unclear yesterday, as the vessel was still undergoing inspections, Jauregui said.
?The vessel owners are working out arrangements to bring the ship into the harbor as soon as possible,? said a statement from APL, the container
transportation company that chartered the APL Panama for its trans-Pacific route.
The Bremen, Germany-based owners of the vessel, Mare Britannicum Schiffahrtsgesellschaft MBH & Co., could not be reached yesterday.
A Dutch towage company, Fairmount Marine, has dispatched the powerful tugboat Hua An from Singapore. The tug specializes in heavy-lift transportation
assignments, according to the company's Web site.
?It is expected that the APL Panama will occupy Hua An for about three months,? the statement read.
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