A ghost ship is now Barbados’ responsibility.
According to international news reports, the MV Christina Debora, a standby guard/emergency response and rescue vessel registered in Zanzibar, in turn needed rescuing when on June 8 last year, it experienced “catastrophic clutch failure”, completely losing propulsion while it was around 300 nautical miles northwest of St Helena Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1 200 miles from Africa. Seven crew members were on board at the time.
The vessel remained adrift despite numerous rescue attempts. By June 21, it had drifted about 450 nautical miles from St Helena, nearing Ascension Island, with no towing capabilities available from either location.
On the night of June 23, the crew abandoned ship and was safely taken aboard the container ship The Theseus.
The Christina Debora was left adrift but, on Wednesday, seven months later, was seen nearing Barbados’ south-east coast by Sam Lord’s Castle, St Philip. By Wednesday evening, it had run aground on the reef there.
Ghost ships, sometimes also called phantom ships, are vessels with no living crew aboard.
The event triggered Barbados’ national response mechanism, where military and civilian agencies were activated, led by the Department of Emergency Management (DEM), and including the Barbados Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Department (EPD), Ministry of Health, Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU), Barbados Fire Service and Barbados National Energy Company Limited (BNECL).
Major Robert Harewood, deputy director of the DEM, said the situation reminded him of the tales of Samuel Hall Lord, a famous local buccaneer who would hang lanterns among the trees along the coast and lure ships to their doom, plundering them after they ran aground. Harewood said gold coins could still be found in the area during extremely rough weather.
As for the situation at hand, he said they had determined the vessel was not leaking oil, so the next step was to get it off the reef, adding it had been cleared for boarding by the Ministry of Health.
Around 3 p.m. yesterday, he said: “What is happening now is the Barbados Coast Guard, along with the [CZMU], have deployed the divers to check the hull of the vessel to see what we need to move it off the reef. So the intent now is to try to get the vessel back out to sea and then to a safe location and that location will be decided very soon.”
Drone images
Harewood thanked the Barbados Defence Force’s (BDF) drone unit, which he said was invaluable as they had provided images and videos since Wednesday, allowing them to determine how far along the reef the vessel had gone and whether there were any leaks. They were also checking which international laws applied to the situation.
He added that once the vessel was moved, the BNECL and EPD would take preventative measures.
“What we are going to do again this [yesterday] afternoon, once we start to move the vessel, the BNECL and EPD are going to put absorbent booms out along the shore as well as absorbent pads and disperse them in the water, [so] just in case there’s any leakage from the vessel, it wouldn’t impact the near shore or the sand.
“We are not going to allow the vessel to continue drifting because if we did, it could end up in another part of Barbados or at one of our neighbouring islands,” he said.
Derek Jones, a diver and organiser of the Long Bay Community 5K Races, said the situation could have been handled better.
“It was in Barbados’ waters for too long. The Coast Guard should have dealt with it and had it towed before it hit the reef so they wouldn’t have to be doing this now,” he suggested.
Jones said he saw the vessel drifting in, but initially dismissed it as a fishing vessel.
Another onlooker, who requested anonymity, agreed with Jones.
“They find drug boats, why not that one? If they can track 18- to 20-foot boats, they could have tracked that.”
However, another bystander disagreed, saying an unmanned vessel on the open ocean was not easy to discern.
When asked, BDF personnel said they were focusing on the mission at hand and such questions would be dealt with later.
Mark Pearce said he, too, observed the ship coming in, but saw a smaller boat next to it, which he thought was unusual.
Another man, who was not identified, said he was alerted by some tourists.
“They told me it looked like a pirate ship. I thought they were joking, but when I went to see for myself, I wondered if it came through a time portal; it looked so old,” he said, adding it was “strange” for the ship to end up here.