19 unpaid Pinoy seafarers rescued after months stuck on abandoned cattle ship

Unpaid seafarers rescued after months stuck on abandoned cattle ship
Tony Wright January 21, 2023 https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/unpaid-seafarers-rescued-aft...

The seafarers rescued from the Yangtze Fortune are to be flown to the Philippines on the weekend.Credit:Leesa Cook/Portland Observer
The months-long saga of an ill-fated livestock ship and its crew abandoned in Portland Bay in Victoria’s south-west inched towards an uncertain conclusion this week, when 19 Filipino seafarers were rescued from the vessel.

The workers had not been paid for months and are owed more than $250,000, according to their union and Australian authorities.

They didn’t have enough money to buy a coffee between them when they were brought ashore on Thursday, Portland Mission to Seafarers head Neville Manson said.

The 19 men are being flown home to the Philippines this weekend, with the promise that eventually they will be paid months of owed wages.

Another 16 crew members remain aboard the stranded ship, the Yangtze Fortune, a Chinese-owned, Liberian-flagged carrier anchored about seven kilometres off the Port of Portland.

This is the minimum crew required to operate the ship, which is now up for auction.

The remaining seafarers, who international union officials say were reduced to reheating leftover food when aid first reached them late last year, are receiving regular supplies of food and other provisions by charter boat from Portland.

It is the first time in at least 25 years that an international ship has been officially abandoned in Victorian waters, according to International Transport Workers’ Federation assistant coordinator for Australia Matt Purcell, whose organisation has taken up the cause of the stranded crew.

The Yangtze Fortune’s most likely fate appears to be a foreign scrapyard, once a buyer is found.

The ship has a crack in its bow and has been declared by Australian maritime and legal authorities to be in a state of deterioration.

Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart, having previously declared the ship “all but abandoned”, ordered this week that the Yangtze Fortune be sold by closed tender, with bids due by 5pm on February 10. Justice Stewart ordered that Australian Independent Shipbrokers be appointed as brokers.

The owner, identified on the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s website as Soar Harmony Shipping Ltd in China, has officially declared the ship abandoned, making it clear the owner wants nothing more to do with the vessel or its debts.

Its sister ship, the Yangtze Harmony, is detained in Singapore with large unpaid debts.

The Yangtze Fortune – a 132-metre, 11,600-tonne converted container ship – arrived in Portland in September to load 5200 breeding cattle to be taken to China.

But maritime authorities refused to load the ship when the crack in its bow was detected.

Soon after, the vessel was “arrested” by Australian government officials acting for the Admiralty Marshal, Australia’s equivalent of a maritime sheriff, after the first of a series of creditors alleged they had not been paid for services including the supply of fuel, known as bunkering.

Dan-Bunkering (Singapore) issued a writ in the federal court claiming $US549,695 ($A800,000) plus interest. The Australia-based livestock exporter, Australasian Global Exports Pty Ltd, claimed damages of $US2.3 million and $A1 million for a breach of a booking note. Two international marine service companies issued writs for more than $A250,000.

Meanwhile, the ship was ushered out of Portland harbour and anchored in the bay, its bulk riding the horizon for weeks that turned into months.

The Filipino crew members refused to leave the ship until they were paid, declaring their families in the Philippines were facing destitution.

But this week 19 crew members – most of them stockmen employed to care for cattle on the Australia-China voyage – struck a deal with the Admiralty Marshal. They would receive a month’s pay, with the remainder to be supplied when the ship was eventually sold.

When the men were brought to shore, the plan went awry: none had a cent in their pockets. The Mission to Seafarers bought coffee and arranged food for their bus trip to Melbourne, so they could fly to Manila. However, most of the men live in provinces far from the capital of the Philippines, and they had no means to travel beyond Manila.

Hastily, diplomats with the Philippines Embassy in Australia agreed that accommodation and transport would be arranged to ensure all the men would reach their homes soon after arriving in their home country.

Meanwhile, the Yangtze Fortune continues to sit off Portland Bay, its 16 remaining crew members unsure of their fate, a buyer wanted for an unwanted vessel of the sea.