1993: Drifting tanker put Fife coast on full alert

The 35,000-tonne tanker ’Havkong’ laden with volatile butane gas broke free from its moorings at Shell Expro’s Braefoot Bay Terminal and drifted to just 300 yards off Hawkcraig Point.

Police and emergency crews were on the brink of evacuating hundreds of people from their homes in Aberdour and Dalgety Bay as any break in the tanker’s double hull would have caused a dangerous gas cloud to form and could have led to a major explosion, with almost 10,000 people living within a mile radius of the area.

Dalgety Bay and Donnibristle Primary Schools were targeted as shelters and transport managers contacted bus companies to set up a quick escape for shorefront residents.

Ironically, the incident came just two weeks after the dangers of heavy tanker traffic in the Forth were highlighted by the Fife Free Press after the Braer oil tanker had ran aground off the Shetland Isles in hurricane-force winds on January 5, spilling almost 85,000 tonnes of crude oil.

A spokesman for Shell said the Havkong lost its moorings during a “severe squall” while loading at theterminaI around 6.50 pm.

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The vessel drifted aimlessly without power in the high winds before six tugs from Forth Ports Authority arrived on the scene to nudge her out of the shallow waters of Aberdour Bay.

A pilot from Forth Ports was put on board and helped the crew to secure the ship’s position by dropping an anchor.

The ship was then moved to a safe anchorage a mile and a half south east of Kirkcaldy harbour and the Shell spokesman said there were no immediateplans to move it back to Braefoot Bay.

A Forth Ports spokesman said the Emergency Forth plan had been put into operation to deal with the incident and that all emergency services had co-operated in the operation.

Whilst Shell promised its own investigation into how the tanker was torn from its moorings, campaigners who fought against the building of the Braeloot Brae terminal sent a clear message to the Scottish Office - “we told you this would happen”.

An action group set up in the late ‘70s battled through a public inquiry and a Court of Session appeal in an attempt to halt Shell’s development plans on the Forth.

Burnett Gray, former chairman of the group and then chairman of Aberdour Community Council, said: “At the time they said we were just scaremongering and that all our predictions were non-credible events. But we knew that with something like this it wasn’t a question of if it would happen, but when.”

An emergency meeting of the council and Aberdour Residents’ Association was planned and Mr Gray said locals were getting restless for answers and assurances.

He added: “If they can’t even carry out the task of putting sufficient mooring ropes on a ship when there are gale warnings, something so simple that a child would think of it, then what worries me is how they can deal with the more complicated side of things.

“The ship could easily have broken its back, fracturing the hull, and then the gas would have started leaking out in large quantities,” he explained, “after that happens everything depends on the wind and weather conditions it could have been a catastrophe.”

Mr Gray, who lived on the shore front, added: “It was quite a shocking experience when I opened up my front door to see this vessel literally just 300 yards away.”