After a reported $100,000 repair job, the oil tanker Front Highness which developed a leak while in the Northwest Bahamas last week, left Freeport Sunday night enroute to Louisianna. <\/P><\/p>\n
The oil tanker had an 18-inch hairline crack in its hull. <\/P><\/p>\n
The Bahamas Government on Thursday gave permission for the Singaporean-registered oil tanker to anchor in Freeport Harbour to repair the cracked hull that leaked oil in the Northwest Bahamas. <\/P><\/p>\n
The 11-year-old tanker was carrying 260,000 tons of Brent Light Crude oil from Scotland to Louisiana. <\/P><\/p>\n
The Ministry of Transport and Aviation emphasised that the oil spillage was minimal, causing no environmental damage to Abaco, Eleuthera and the Berry Islands. <\/P><\/p>\n
Prior to the government’s granting permission for the single-hulled tanker to sail into Freeport Habour, a three-man team flew to the ship in a chartered helicopter for an on-the-spot assessment. The team was composed of Ben Ferguson, Deputy Port Director in Freeport; David Betts, a representative of the owners of the tanker. V. Ships UK Limited; and Darrell Ashley, a representative of Det Norske Veritas (DNV), a Norwegian ship classification society whose responsibilities include inspecting ships to ensure their seaworthiness. <\/P><\/p>\n
They reported no traces of oil leaking to the surface, and no sign of an oil slick on the surrounding waters. DNV issued a temporary certificate of classification, indicating the tanker’s seaworthiness to continue traveling. <\/P><\/p>\n
Plans called for the Front Highness, located about 70 miles off Hole in the Wall, Abaco, to be escorted into Freeport Harbour by a tug. “Underwater welders will then weld a metal patch over an 18-inch hairline crack in its hull, enabling it to resume its voyage to Louisiana safely,” the Ministry said. <\/P><\/p>\n
“The repair work and a determination of the exact damage will be done under the supervision of Det Norske Veritas.” <\/P><\/p>\n
The cause of the leak is being investigated. In an attempt to deal with it on Christmas Eve, officers and crew successfully transferred fuel from one tank into a water ballast tank, the Ministry said. <\/P><\/p>\n
In the event that assistance was required for a clean-up operation, The Caribbean Co-operative of Fort Lauderdale had been notified.<\/P>
\n
By Keva Lightbourn, The Nassau Guardian<\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oil spillage was minimal, causing no environmental damage to Abaco, Eleuthera and the Berry Islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240923,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240161\/revisions\/240923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}