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One month later, “ghost ship” still drifts aimlessly in the sea of Brazil’s Pernambuco state

Exactly three months ago, on August 4, a large Dutch tugboat left the port of Rio de Janeiro towing what was once the largest Brazilian military ship: the former aircraft carrier São Paulo, which had been idle for five years.

The destination would be a shipyard in Turkey, where the large ship, 266 meters long, would be dismantled and transformed into scrap after being bought by the Turkish company Sok Denizcilikve Tic through an auction promoted by the Brazilian Navy.

The renovation of the old aircraft carrier was budgeted at about R$1 billion (US$195 million) and considered unfeasible.

But everything went wrong.

The São Paulo aircraft carrier was the largest ship the Brazilian Navy has ever had.
The São Paulo aircraft carrier was the Brazilian Navy’s largest ship. (Photo: internet reproduction)

BACK TO BRAZIL

It was prevented from entering Turkey because it is not known exactly how much toxic material there still is on board the former aircraft carrier, especially asbestos, a carcinogenic material that is condemned worldwide.

According to international conventions, asbestos cannot be transported, much less exported), so the convoy had to turn around and return to Brazil when it was already on the other side of the Atlantic.

The epic journey of about 7,000 kilometers at sea – and as much to return – lasted two months and ended up bringing the ship back to the same place it had left from – the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

But it could not stay there and had to go to Pernambuco, where it could not dock either.

NOT HERE, EITHER!

Once back in Brazil, the ex-aircraft carrier was not allowed to dock in any port for the same reason as the Turkish refusal: the unknown quantity of toxic material on board.

So began, in the sea of Pernambuco, near the port of Suape, the second part of a succession of absurdities that have transformed the fate of the ex-aircraft carrier in a typical telenovela.

Now, nobody knows what to do with the gigantic decommissioned ship, which has become a kind of ghost that nobody wants around.

ONE MONTH SAILING IN CIRCLES

Since it returned to Brazil a month ago, the convoy formed by the Dutch tugboat and the ex-(only) Brazilian aircraft carrier has spent days and nights wandering back and forth in the sea of Pernambuco, about 20 kilometers off the coast, waiting for a decision on what to do with the ship, which no port wants to accept – not even that of Rio de Janeiro, where it left three months ago.

Since the huge aircraft carrier cannot be anchored for safety reasons, since it no longer has any engines or its own means of mobility in case of need, it is up to the 16 crew members of the Dutch tugboat, mostly Filipinos, now under the command of Russian Captain Dmitry Nefedov (who replaced the previous captain after his return from Europe), to spend days and nights dragging that heavy 30,000-ton hull on endless round trips at sea near the port of Suape.

For a month, the tugboat crew has been waiting for an answer that never comes: where to take the ship that drags day and night without any destination?

No one knows the answer.

ENDLESS COMING AND GOING

Day after day, the convoy sails in circles along the southern coast of Pernambuco, going nowhere.

Most of the time, the two boats are adrift but joined together by thick steel cables, with the tugboat crew constantly monitoring the winds and currents.

When these two elements start pushing the convoy away, the tugboat comes into play and returns the ship to its original position.

It is an endless back and forth.

ENTANGLEMENT OF CIRCLES IN THE SEA

On the Internet, the sites that track vessels at sea show an incomprehensible tangle of overlapping lines, which go back and forth when the searched vessel is the tugboat Alp Centre (click here to see it in real time).

In them also appears the message that the tug is “awaiting instructions”, information that has not changed for a month.

It is estimated that every day, depending on the intensity of the winds and the current, the peculiar convoy makes two or three turns in the region without, however, leaving the vicinity of the port of Suape, where it hopes, one day, to be able to dock, either to get rid of the uncomfortable ship or, at least, to refuel the tugboat with fuel, before continuing its journey – although it is not known where to.

“The tugboat seems to still have fuel, but its captain has already asked for reinforcements of food and supplies for the crew, which has also been partially replaced because it had been at sea for quite some time,” says a maritime agent of the Pernambuco port in charge of attending to the convoy, but who does not risk saying how this case, unprecedented in the history of Brazilian maritime navigation, by the way, should end.

HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM?

Strictly speaking, there are three possibilities.

The first is for the Turkish company that bought the ship to return the aircraft carrier to the Brazilian Navy, despite what it has already spent on the failed transport to Europe (the estimated cost of the tugboat is about US$30,000 a day, also giving up what it paid for the ship at auction:

R$10.5 million (US$2.1 billion) – less than what its useless transport has cost so far, and, according to experts, well below what former aircraft carrier São Paulo would be worth, even as simple scrap.

In this case, a new auction of the ship would be held in the future, but even this would bring some immediate problems because, right now, no port wants to receive it.

Much less to have the toxic material on board removed.

MORE LIKELY HYPOTHESIS

The second alternative to the ship-sized mess the ex-aircraft carrier has become would be to resell it to another dismantling company in its current state (i.e., wandering aimlessly at sea) as a way for the current owner to get rid of the problem – which, however, given the repercussions of the case in Brazil and Europe, seems unlikely.

The third – and most probable – hypothesis would be to somehow overcome the environmentalist restrictions (especially those of the state environmental secretariats, such as the one in Pernambuco, which has already opposed the stoppage of the convoy in Suape), and dock the convoy in some Brazilian port, to remove the asbestos that still exists on board the old ghost ship, which has been wandering at sea for three months, with no one on board – 9.6 tons, according to the inspection done in Brazil, before the departure, or much more than that, besides other substances, also according to specialists.

THE WHOLE STORY

The point is that, besides the inevitable negative reaction from the environmental agencies (the same reason why the convoy was prevented from entering Turkey), the removal of asbestos, present mainly in the pipes of the ship, is a slow, complex, and expensive procedure, which would make the soap opera in which the sale of the former Brazilian aircraft carrier has become even longer.

INSPECTION RECOMMENDED REPAIRS

Contributes, however, to this alternative one of the conclusions drawn by the inspection that was made to the aircraft carrier upon its arrival in Pernambuco – and after being towed, for nothing, to Rio de Janeiro, on its return from Europe, in another mess of a case full of them.

In the inspection, carried out at sea, far from the port of Pernambuco, 15 days ago, technicians from a specialized company found that, although a certain amount of water has penetrated the ship’s hull (something already expected, especially after being towed for so long), the stability of the former aircraft carrier is not compromised, which, at least for now, removes the risk of shipwreck.

This accident has already happened in the past with another large ship of the Brazilian Navy, coincidentally also called “São Paulo”, when it was also towed to the dismantling in Europe.

However, the inspection recommended that the ship be taken to a shipyard “for repairs”.

But where if no port wants to receive it?

A GLOBAL NGO HAS SPOKEN OUT

“It is time for the Brazilian authorities to collectively take responsibility for the dangerous situation that the former aircraft carrier São Paulo represents,” said this week Nicola Mulinaris, spokesperson for Shipbreaking Platform, a global NGO dedicated to environmental issues involving the dismantling of ships.

“Now, it is up to Ibama and the Brazilian Navy to provide a solution to this problem.”

THE DREAM OF TURNING IT INTO A MUSEUM

In the face of so many setbacks and mishaps, the almost utopian proposal of an enthusiast of the ex-aircraft carrier São Paulo, Emerson Miura, from São Paulo and ex-soldier in the air force, to transform it into a floating museum, instead of being dismantled and turned into scrap, gained an unexpected survival.

“As long as the ship exists, there is the hope of saving it,” says Miura, who, with the unlikely return of the convoy to Brazil last month, achieved at least one hard-to-imagine victory: that of seeing the carrier’s progress toward dismantling rolled back.

“We gained more time to act,” celebrates Miura, who created an institute to preserve Brazil’s largest-ever military ship.

But for now, he is far from achieving his goal of turning the doomed ship into a museum, as has happened with other ex-aircraft carriers worldwide.

THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER THAT ENDED UP IN A LAGOON

One of the most famous cases of this kind was the legendary former Russian aircraft carrier Minsk, which operated heavily during the Soviet Union era and was turned into an amusement theme park in China when retired.

But the deal did not work out as well as the Chinese buyers imagined. After a while, it was sold to another businessman, who, for lack of a better place to dock the huge ship (the same problem as the Brazilian aircraft carrier), stuck it in a lagoon in the interior of China, waiting for a new use.

And it is there to this day, deactivated and abandoned, in a lagoon that it will never be able to leave, not even to be dismantled.

A TROUBLED HISTORY

The former Brazilian aircraft carrier São Paulo was sold to the Turks through a troubled auction, postponed several times.

But the history of this aircraft carrier in the country was also troubled.

Bought second-hand from France in 2000, the São Paulo replaced the legendary aircraft carrier Minas Gerais, Brazil’s first aircraft carrier, but her life was as short as it was problematic.

With an intermittent series of mechanical problems (including the tragic rupture of a steam duct in 2004, which resulted in the death of three crew members), she could never sail for long without requiring repairs.

During the 17 years it spent in the Brazilian Navy, the São Paulo sailed just over 200 days, which made it a nuisance in the fleet and accelerated its decommissioning process.

Then another problem arose: what to do with it?

And this problem remains three months after the ship left Brazil for what seemed to be a voyage with no return, and one month later, it was drifting in circles in the Northeastern sea.

The soap opera of the former Brazilian aircraft carrier with nowhere to stop is not over yet. And the following chapters might be even more surprising.

With information from UOL

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