The Indian Coast Guard helped stop flooding aboard a disabled foreign-flagged commercial vessel off the coast of Paradip in eastern India on Sunday, September 27.
The Belize-registered, 11,131DWT chemical tanker Sea Gull 9 was carrying 9,000 tonnes of palm oil and had 23 crew on board when its main engine failed and a ballast tank began flooding.
The vessel then developed a list of about 10 degrees while roughly 37 nautical miles offshore.
Coast guard personnel stabilised the tanker before the Paradip Port Authority tug Dolphin took it under tow towards the port anchorage. The ship subsequently entered Paradip harbour with minimal assistance from its own engine and was secured at the port’s NQ2 berth at about 16:00 local time on Monday, September 28.
A minor palm-oil sheen was seen near the tanker on Sunday. Follow-up aerial sorties found that the sheen had dissipated by Monday, the coast guard said.
Pollution response protocols remained in effect while coast guard vessels continued to monitor the area.
The tanker had sent a distress call at about 07:30 on Sunday. The coast guard offshore patrol vessel (OPV) ICGS Vishwast responded, and a specialist team for damage control went aboard the tanker as water entered the ballast tanks faster than it could be discharged.
“The team deployed submersible de-flooding pumps, arrested the leakage, blanked two damaged seawater pipelines, and contained a third fractured line, eliminating the threat of capsizing,” the coast guard said.
The coast guard team and the tanker’s crew also transferred cargo while the de-flooding continued.
Dolphin left Paradip at 13:40 on Sunday and reached Sea Gull 9 at 17:24. The towline connection was completed at 17:54, after which the tug brought the tanker within port limits.
The coast guard also diverted a pollution control vessel and another OPV to the scene. A Dornier aircraft took off from Bhubaneswar to survey the tanker and the surrounding waters, with additional flights conducted the following day.
Vishwast and the other deployed coast guard assets remained nearby to support the tanker. The OPV’s technical team had also assisted with repairs to the tanker’s main engine.
Sea Gull 9 was sailing from Malaysia to Paradip when the engine failure and flooding occurred.