I HAVE read a great deal in The Herald of late about the grounding of the Transocean Winner oil rig on the Isle of Lewis (“Tugs tow grounded oil rig back out to sea”, The Herald, August 23) and the usual valid “what if” and “why not” missives from your Letters Pages contributors.
I, like your contributors, am concerned about the incident but more in terms of protocols regarding the specialist tow involving the Transocean Winner. I have tried to establish whether or not a full risk assessment was presented to our Maritime and Coastguard Agency for clearance before the tow entered our territorial waters (12 miles). It would appear that all international shipping is required to do is inform the local coastguard agency of their sailing intentions when they arrive to cruise through the UK area of jurisdiction. In turn the coastguard will keep them advised of any other shipping in the area.
The individual UK ports and harbour authorities (Forth, Clyde, Cromarty, Sullom Voe and so on) have much greater powers for their own locales. As such they are able to insist on stringent compliance of local directives by visiting vessels. However out in the deep sea the rules are different. I am sure that the rig owners complied with good practice in arranging the tow; excepting of course why a rig going to a breakers 4,000 kilometres distant was allowed to sail with tanks full of machinery fuel?
In 2014 the UK Government issued a National Strategy for Maritime Security and presumably this is still being developed? Under the section Delivering our Objectives, Objective 4 states "to assure the security of vital maritime trade and energy transportation routes within the UK Marine Area, regionally and internationally".
Now, I accept that the overall strategy purpose is leaning heavily towards the issue of security in terms of international piracy, immigration and other relevant modern issues. However the security of our environment should have a crossover to this document. To this end I would hope that the relevant law makers can move forward and agree that a full risk assessment requires to be submitted to our maritime agency for every such large towing operation before a hawser is hooked up or an anchor weighed. All comments on the efficacy of the risk assessment by our agency are actionable by the towing company.
A blanket directive should also be included in the strategy ensuring all such towing operations in the UK Maritime Area require a standby tug of equal capacity to escort the tow until clear of UK Exclusive Economic Zone – some 200 miles. This would put the onus on the owners to pay for this service instead of the UK taxpayer having to provide such expensive craft sitting in a harbour.
Archie Burleigh,
Meigle Cottage, Skelmorlie.
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