PORTS Victoria is investigating an overnight incident when an outbound containership was forced to return to berth after an alarm indicated its air draught was too great to pass under Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge.
The 10,034 TEU CMA CGM Tanya, making its first voyage for ANL on the AAX-S service from South East Asia, departed Patrick’s East Swanson Dock terminal at 0217 this morning on a draught of 11 metres, having arrived from Singapore on Thursday night [4 September] drawing 13.2 metres.
A Port Phillip Sea Pilot was guiding the vessel, which was attended by three tugs.
However, DCN believes that as the ship approached the West Gate Bridge alarms activated indicating an air draught several metres higher than permissible for passage. AIS tracking shows CMA CGM Tanya was pulled up short of the bridge and returned by tugs to its 3 East berth, running lines again at 0355.
It remains alongside, with a new ETD of 0430 tomorrow for Port Botany.
ANL/CMA CGM and Port of Melbourne referred DCN to Ports Victoria, from which comment has been sought.
It is understood there is thought to be no fault with terminal (possible overloading) or vessel (overloading or failure to lower signal mast), with the ship booked out with air draught of 49.67, within limits.
Instead the ‘culprit’ is suspected to be a fault with the clearance alarm system and was likely “a false positive”.
DCN was told that if nothing else, the incident demonstrated great co-operation by the industry behind the scenes to ensure the matter was safely resolved without damage to ship or infrastructure.