Rescue Crews Navigate Drones and Fire to Salvage Houthi-Hit Ship

By Verity Ratcliffe (Bloomberg) —

A salvage crew climbing up a fire-ravaged ship lined with barbed wire. A French naval vessel fighting off combat drones. And seafarers navigating through the looming risks of encountering Somali pirates.

These are scenes from a perilous mission that began soon after missiles fired by Houthi militants slammed a 50,000-ton cargo ship on March 6. The journey of the True Confidence as it was attempting to sail through the Gulf of Aden — pieced together by Bloomberg News from interviews, photographs, official statements and ship-tracking data — offers a look at a deadly new era for the international shipping industry.

For months, the Houthis have carried out a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s military actions in Gaza, forcing many ships to redirect their journeys. The True Confidence shows the threat to the oil tankers, cargo carriers and seafarers who are still using this vital waterway for global trade. 

The assault was the first of the Houthi attacks to kill seafarers. Two crew members from the Philippines died on board and another from Vietnam died from his injuries shortly after. One survivor had a leg amputated and another had surgery on his face, said Eduardo de Vega, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for the Philippines. Many are struggling to talk about the experience and crews in general will be unwilling to sail through the Red Sea, he said.

“Filipino seafarers, they are a brave sort. They have a reputation, they’re solid, they’re brave,” de Vega said. “But after these deaths I’m sure some seafarers from the Philippines will be more reluctant even if their pay is doubled.”

Salvage Mission

Within hours of the Houthi strike, the survivors on the True Confidence had been rescued by an Indian warship. But the vessel, stretching the length of around two football fields, was left floating in the Gulf of Aden, abandoned, ablaze and drifting with its mighty load of cargo still on board.

At around 6.30 p.m. on March 6 in Dubai, Sudheer Chitla, a long-time shipping expert and managing director of Altus Shipping Services LLC, received a call from a broker about the incident. He happened to have a tugboat in the Yemeni port of Aden that was ordinarily used for towing old vessels to Pakistan and India to be scrapped.

The first challenge for the tugboat — called Red Bull — was finding the True Confidence. The Red Bull scoured the area while communicating its position to the US Navy so that it didn’t mistakenly identify it as a hostile vessel, Chitla said.

At around 1 a.m. on March 8, the crew spotted a light on the True Confidence in the distance standing out against the pitch-black sea and sky. Smoke was still billowing out.

The tugboat’s crew tackled the blaze and then used ropes with hooks to scale up the side of the vessel, according to Chitla. Their task was made harder by the barbed wire that lined the sides of the vessel at the deck level, presumably installed as a last line of defense against pirates. Parts of the ship were blisteringly hot because of the fire.

The crew of the Red Bull connected the tug to the damaged ship but progress was hampered by a second attack. 

On the morning of March 9, four combat drones headed toward the True Confidence and a French naval ship that had sailed nearby. The frigate and its fighter jets destroyed the drones, France’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

“This defensive action directly contributed to the protection of the cargo ship True Confidence (under Barbados flag) struck on March 6 and being towed, as well as other commercial vessels transiting in the area,” it said.

The US Navy instructed the Red Bull to switch off its tracking system while it was towing the vessel to safety, said Chitla. However, they only sailed around 5 miles before the engine of the Red Bull suffered a serious malfunction, and fixing the problem would have required a specialist team, he said.

As the True Confidence drifted toward Somalia at the speed of about 1-2 miles an hour, the search for a replacement tugboat became more frantic. Encountering Somalia’s pirates would make the salvage mission so much harder. 

Few tugboats were available for charter in the area and fewer still were willing to sail to the wreckage. At last, one was found — a vessel called Hercules that was docked in Somalia. Unluckily for the salvage operations, it was under US sanctions that cite its owners links to Iran.

The owner of the True Confidence received special permission from the US Office of Foreign Asset Control on March 12 to use the Hercules in the salvage mission, owner True Confidence Shipping SA and operator Third January Maritime Ltd. said in a joint statement on March 21.

The Hercules was instructed to tow True Confidence to Djibouti, a nearby safe port. However, weather conditions soon worsened and the choppy waters broke the tow line between the vessels. Once the ships were reconnected they set off again for Djibouti. Yet as they neared the port limits they were told the request for entry had been denied.

“Following refusal by the Port of Djibouti to grant port of refuge, the tow has continued in a north-easterly direction away from the high risk area, with the intention of seeking refuge at the port of Duqm,” the shipowner and operator said in a joint statement on March 20. 

As of Wednesday evening the Hercules and True Confidence were still on their way to Duqm in Oman, which has dry dock facilities that are used for salvage and repairs. Once there, the agency that provided the ship’s crew will locate the remains of the seafarers for repatriation to the Philippines, said Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega. “The families need closure.”

There has been no pollution from True Confidence either from the initial attack or the subsequent salvage and tow, the owner and operator said.

Another vessel, the Rubymar, was hit by the Houthis in February spilling its cargo of environmentally damaging fertilizer into the waters. The attack on the True Confidence, meanwhile, leaves a particular mark on the shipping industry because of the deaths.

“It’s a case of pure luck that it hasn’t happened before when you look at the number and seriousness of attacks,” said Jakob Larsen, head of safety and security at trade group BIMCO. “But the tragic death of three seafarers will mean that people will perceive the route as more dangerous than before it happened.”

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

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