The South African government has received its first-ever environmental protection vessel, marked by an official handover ceremony on Monday.
Accepting the new R113-million ($19m) vessel, named the Sarah Baartman, the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said: “At no point ever has South Africa been better-equipped to protect our marine resources, monitor our marine environment, or react more rapidly to accidents and incidents in our waters.
“We are building an environmental compliance and enforcement fleet that is the envy of other countries. Today we take delivery of the Sarah Baartman — the largest, strongest, and best-equipped of our four new environmental protection vessels. She is our environmental flagship and her delivery provides our country with a capacity to patrol and protect our offshore marine resources matching that of countries like France and Australia.”
Built under contract by Damen Shipyards, work on the vessel began in Romania in July 2003 and was continued in Vlissingen in the Netherlands, where final outfitting took place. Measuring 83m in length, the Sarah Baartman will carry 18 crew, four cadets and seven fishery inspectors. With a range of 7Â 500 nautical miles at 15 knots, she can remain at sea for up to 45 days at a time. Her top speed is in excess of 20 knots.
“South Africa lost between R400 and 600-million in Toothfish catches from 1996 to 2000 alone,” said Van Schalkwyk.
“In spite of the fact that they are never eaten in South Africa, they are being illegally fished to the brink of extinction in our waters. The Sarah Baartman will give us the capacity to put an end to this poaching.
“This vessel will, however, not only catch poachers, she will also serve to deter them. We have seen this with our new inshore vessel the Lilian Ngoyi.
In her first month of operations the Lilian Ngoyi seized three vessels and also issued a number of spot fines. The reported incidents of abalone poachers using rubber-ducks in the Overberg area decreased from an average of 16 per week to approximately one per week over this period.”
Equipped with a helicopter deck and refuelling facilities, the much larger Sarah Baartman will be able to accommodate a fully laden Super Puma/Oryx helicopter, which will extend her range of sight by at least 20 times. The vessel also has hospital facilities and capacity for six, six metre containers which can be loaded and discharged by the vessel’s own crane, making her extremely useful in assisting with high speed disaster relief, search and rescue, evacuations, fire fighting, pollution control (such as oil spills), towing, and other emergency operations. – I-Net Bridge