SKILLFUL WORK by pilots averted a possibly serious incident in Port Phillip Bay on Wednesday afternoon [25 September] when the inbound PCTC Höegh St Petersburg suffered a steering failure as it approached a passing outbound bulk carrier off Sorrento.
The 65,000 DWT, Japanese-owned, Panama-flagged Theresa Bright, on its maiden voyage, was outbound from Geelong with 60,000 tonnes of Graincorp wheat for Gresik, Indonesia having departed port at 0655 with a draught of 11.9 metres.
The 7850 CEU, 2009-built, Norwegian flag Höegh St Petersburg was headed to Melbourne on Höegh Autoliners’ regular service from Europe and had taken a pilot outside the Heads at 1140. Both vessels were under pilotage by Port Phillip Sea Pilots, with PPSP MD Capt Michael Hanson on the PCTC and Capt Arian Visser on the bulk carrier.
Eyewitnesses who contacted DCN described the steering loss as resulting in “quite a few hairy moments” given the heavily-laden Theresa Bright had few manoeuvring options, and the vessels passed green-to-green. “The pilots did a great job of avoiding an accident,” one commented.
Höegh St Petersburg was brought to the Melbourne anchorage where it arrived around 1610. It was then placed under detention, with an AMSA spokesperson yesterday confirming “AMSA has detained the car carrier Hoegh St Petersburg until such time as we are satisfied issues with its steering have been rectified”.
DCN understands neither the port nor MIRRAT were prepared to allow the ship to berth, given a number of episodes when disabled vessels have ended up blocking berths, most notably when fire-stricken Höegh Trooper was stranded at Webb Dock West 2 from 18 February-14 May 2023, before being towed away for repair.
Once the classification society, AMSA and local authorities are satisfied Höegh St Petersburg will be cleared to berth, probably early next week.
