Those floating hulls

By Alexandre Vilela

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A junk yard of 100 + units

The situation is alarming.

This last quarter two cases involving vessels have caught the public eye relative to the ageing tonnage ol the shipping industry in Brazil. In one hand the incident involving the M/V São Luiz, an out-of-service bulk carner that crasined against the Rio-Niterói bridge, brought hell to the already mad traffic in Rio de Janeiro and Niterói as the bridge was momentarily closed in the middle of rush hour and a tropical storm. The vessel that was anchored at the bay before getting lose and hitting the bndge was towed away to a nearby safe berth.

On the other hand, former Brazilian navy aireraft carrier NAe São Paulo has been auctioned and sold to a Turkish buyer, exported and underway to its destiny port had its entry denied by Turkish authorities, the export license re voked by the Brazilian environmental authorities, thus the convoy turned back to Rio de Janeiro al the way from nearly entering the Mediterranean, yet denied entry in Rio and instructed to proceed up north to Pernambuco. The compromised hull remains connected to the doeangoing tug ofishore Recife for weeks, said to contain a protrusion of approximately 3m just above the water line.

Both cases are surrounded with clashing legal appeas and challenges betwean involved parties. No, not only between buyer and seller but aiso environmental, judicial executive authorties in many layers of bureaucracy and endless discussions.

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Rio in the middle

For Rio, the situation is specially alarming.

Rio de Janeiro has a long history as a central hub for navigation in South America. Additionally, it has led the two separate shipbuilding industry cycles in Brazil, in the 70’s and in the 2000 s, featuring the largest shipbuilding and ship repair complex in country. with yet some units active.

Further, Rio hosts most of the shipping companies, its agents and commis-sionaires, the offshore support industry for the oil and gas sector. Rio is the natural port for the admission, export and import, temporary admission and inspection of rigs and olishore units, the central cruise line destination in the east coast of South America and homeport of the highest concentration of fishing and lei-sure boats in the southeast Brazilian coast.

Therefore, naturally, maybe unfortunately, the state carries the burden of having to deal with the challenges of an ageing shipping industry. Owners would not naturally turn else-where if not Rio de Janeiro to “deposit” the ageing fleet, until some commercial sense could make it go away. Importers wouldn’t be able to sail elsewhere if a problem is en-countered, exporters must turn back or even not sail away if the process is not cleared to destination.

MN São Luiz and NAe São Paulo are clear examples of the messy dilemma, and they are only the tip of the tropical iceberg.

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The burial ground

The situation is indeed alarming.

Rio is said to embrace more than 100 ships in out-of-service or abandoned condition. From various sizes, different segments within shipping from fishing through cabotage and deepsea shipping all the way into offshore support vessels. IMO listed and smaller craft. Registered tonnage, abandoned tonnage, unidentified tonnage. Floating, grounded, berthed, manned, unmanned, keeled over, listed completely sunk. With commercial value, without commercial value. With debt that is unpayable in this lifetime. Arrested by justice, locked by navy, anchored by Neptune containing asbestos, having people on board stealing what is left, having people on board in poor working condition, having people on board in no working condition. And just a few adequately kept and maintained, many cold stacked, some rare in warm stack, the only ones possibly having a new employment.

And the main issue is that no single authority or group of authorities, or companies, or academic, are fully aware and truly know what the effective number of ships, or hulls, are really deposited in Rio. If any have an es-timate, rest assured the number is only an estimate but moreover yet unprecise as to real condition, be it physical or fiscal, of the equipment.

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Don’t blame the navy

The navy is the middle of the alarming situation. Caught in the middle. A democratic country has love for the legal procedure. And there relies on the main barrier, and the reason why the Navy can’t be blamed. The law established that the Navy is responsible for the removal and the demolition of sunk, sub-merged, grounded, and lost assets because of an incident or misfortune at sea. See?

The Navy can’t exactly take over a vessel. or hull, in whatever condition (except as specifically provided by law as above) that nas 16 an idenufied owner, or owners, or interested parties, under a legal dispute, where other authorities are also taking part in discussions and valuations and where parties have economical interest, even if those interests are purely related to vacating the debt or selling the steel. Further, the Navy is also allowed by law to delegate such responsibilities to other authorities such as the environmental in either state or federal level.

Complex, very complex.

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Slow, slow, slow

The situation is more than alarming. is crit-ical. Imagine. In the case of the MY São Luis, one month prior to the incident with the Rio-Niterói bridge, the port authority, which is involved in the legal case at court, requested the court for authorization to embark the ves. sel for certain safety measures which included inspections, welding and closing of bottom plugs, valves, sea chests and other parts, as well as the reinforcement of the anchorng of the vessel with potentially an additional mooring point to safeguard the vessels trom losing anchor.

The court decided favorably on this request 2 days alter the vessel nagu the bridge, in this JC year of 2022. The court case is on and the vessel in this location and poor condition since 2016 Courts are only slow, or they also don’t read the newspaper?
Fair enough, here is a piece of improvement that can be pointed at, nevertheless, when will a serious study be commissioned and a joint effort lead by authorities be put in place to resolve the critical part of this situation?

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Pointing at the fact that Rio de Janeiro state have taken over the area of that yard which has figured amongst the largest and most important in country in better days located in the Guanabara Bay. In itself currently not anything better than a junkyard in itself but naving a lot of potential for this and many oiner activities. Luckly we already see some movement from authorties in discussing its use Hoping for better days. The memory of the shipping industry deserves, as putting a decent end to the lifecycle of such equipment is very important to ensure its continuity.