MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falkland Islands: Weekly Penguin News update

Headlines: Leiv sails single-handed from Spain; Options were limited for disposal of Ocean 8; Fishing industry 'penalised' by FIG; Dong Bang burns in FOCZ north.

Leiv sails single-handed from SpainGETTING a smart set of wheels and a first foot on the housing ladder are issues which loom just as large for young adults in the Falklands as they do in the rest of the world. However, if, like 27 year-old Leiv Poncet, you live on a remote island and were brought up on a yacht by deep water sailing parents, you might take a different view. Faced with the difficulties of getting to his home on Beaver Island by air and at the same time looking for a place to call his own, Leiv recently took himself of to Spain to buy a yacht. Peregrine,the 38ft steel ketch in which Leiv arrived in Stanley last Friday, via Gibraltar, Cape Verde and Brazil was sourced after he discovered the one he had originally planned to buy had been rather optimistically described by the sellers. Nor, having bought instead a 30 year old French-built yacht, which had never been out of the Mediterranean, was it Leiv's choice to sail it all the way down to the South Atlantic single-handed. "There just wasn't anybody else available," he said. Having circumnavigated both the Falklands and South Georgia by kayak, Leiv is no stranger to single-handed exploits, but he says he would have preferred to have had someone else with him on this trip. "It's more lonely than kayaking because there is less to do," he said. Although the journey as far as Brazil was for the most part uneventful, Leiv suffered from sleep deprivation, particularly in the busy shipping lanes between Spain and the Canaries, where he was sleeping not much more than an hour at a time. While Peregrine, which comfortably sleeps five, will predominantly be Leiv's transport to and from Beaver Island, he said he would also be interested in undertaking charters around the Islands. Options were limited for disposal of Ocean 8 THE Fisheries Department did not have carte blanche to dispose of the burning Ocean 8in any way it chose, was the firm message given by Director of Fisheries John Barton, at the conclusion of Tuesday's Fisheries Committee meeting. Replying to a question posed by Stuart Wallace of Fortuna Ltd as to why the burning Korean trawler was not either towed away to deep water or beached, Mr Barton said that there had been two possible, but different, scenarios considered: the movement of the vessel within the harbour area or dumping at sea. There were a number of potential problems associated with the dumping option, the Fisheries Director explained; one being that it would have required a licence, which would itself have required the permission of the owners, which had not been given. Normally, prior to dumping a ship, cleaning would have to take place, as in the case of then longliner Elqui, which was sunk in 2005 at the order of the South Georgia Government. This was obviously not an option in the case of a vessel which was still burning. Equally difficult to assess, had the decision to dump the ship been taken, was the time it might take to sink, said Mr Barton. While it might be popularly assumed that the Navy or Airforce could be called upon to sink the vessel, their cooperation was unlikely and an attempt to dump the ship in open waters could have resulted in having a burning ship around for a week. According to Mr Barton, permission had been received from the owners only to move the ship, to a safe place, like FIPASS, which would have been totally unacceptable while the vessel was still on fire. An attempt had been made to tow the Ocean 8to a position near the mouth of Berkeley Sound where there are already two other wrecks, said Mr Barton, but a sudden flare up of the fire and the attendant risk of explosion, caused the operation to be aborted. Had it been possible to strand the vessel in shallow water, close to the shore, the chances of eventual clearance of oil or plugging of future spills would have been improved, as would the deployment of booms to contain any spills. However, said Mr Barton, there would always be the difficult choice of which piece of shoreline to strand the ship on. With respect to the present situation, regarding Ocean 8, the Director of Fisheries told the Committee that monitoring was on-going, with some spraying of oil dispersants and that negotiations were ongoing with the vessel's owners with regard to plugging leaks or other more long-term solutions. The main slick is breaking up within 500m of the wreck and the westerly winds over the weekend have taken much of the oil out of Berkeley Sound, he said. Sarah Crofts of Falklands Conservation said the dispersants are not removing the whole oil slick, but may in small localised areas help break it down quicker. Continued on page 3Fishing industry 'penalised' by FIG WHILE Spanish fishermen, who do not have to pay licence fees, are on strike because of lack of government help to counter recent global fuel increases, Falkland Islands fishermen are being penalised by their own government. This accusation was made by fishing industry spokesperson Drew Irvine at Tuesday's meeting of the Fisheries Committee. Similar sentiments were expressed by Lewis Clifton of Byron Marine, who stated that it seemed that the opinions of fishing industry members, "...don't seem to count for a bean," with Executive Council. The focus of this discontent was the decision of Executive Council, to reject an appeal by the Falkland Islands Fishing Companies Association against a 30% increase in Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) fees for the Winter Loligofishery. Mr Irvine made the point that at least two councillors had publicly referred to the negative impact that rising fuel costs were having on the Falkland Islands economy, but that this awareness had clearly not percolated through to ExCo. Department of Fisheries Director, John Barton estimated the rise in fuel prices since January to be in the region of 42%. Dong Bang burns in FOCZ northA KOREAN jigger which recently visited Berkeley Sound to tranship is on fire in the fishing grounds of FOCZ North, some 200 miles from the Falklands. Dong Bang 31 caught fire on Wednesday morning, with all crew safely abandoning the vessel and being picked up by jiggers 601 Myung Gin and 55 Dae Woong, a spokesperson from the Fisheries Department said. On Thursday morning the vessel was reported to be listing at an angle of 25 degrees but was showing no sign of sinking. The Fisheries Patrol vessel Protegatis in the vicinity carrying out normal duties and monitoring the situation.