Barge Margaret Traditional Cache
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Barge Margaret
One of the most spectacular and recent shipwrecks along the South African coast was of the barge Margaret.
The 100m unmanned eight story high barge Margaret ran aground at Jacobsbaai on the west coast on 24 June 2009.
Margaret was carrying two halves of a floating dry dock and 12 river barges (positioned atop each other in side-by-side pairs, with 2 rows of three at the bottom. It was estimated to be worth R300m
She was under tow by the tug Salvaliant from a Chinese shipyard where everything was manufactured, to Rotterdam. The barges were destined to transport cargo up and down the navigable rivers in Europe. Instead of the tug boat taking the quick route through the Suez Canal at risk of Somali pirates, they opted for the long and dangerous route around the Cape of Storms.
During a winter storm the tow parted, and Margaret and her cargo ran hard aground the rocky reef at Hospitaalbaai just outside Jacobsbaai.
The stack of barges and two halves of a floating dry dock (the blue parts of the structure in the images) was clearly visible from a great distance. It looked like an office block rising out of the ocean. The wreck was so large that it was visible from almost every point in the town and the brain struggled to make sense of it.
It is clear from the images what a challenge it must have been to tow the barge in the wind, as the forty to fifty meter high, perfectly flat sides of the stack must have provided tremendous resistance in a gale.
Salvaging the barges proved to be an almost intractable problem so Margaret was still sitting firmly a couple of hundred meters off the beach six months after grounding. The owner spent R21m trying to salvage the barge before he ran out of money.
Margaret was becoming increasingly damaged and unstable as time passed. The risk of the upper barges coming loose during another storm, and drifting away to cause a hazard to other ships or coming ashore on the beach was great.
It was decided by SAMSA to persist with an attempt to reduce the wreck, at taxpayers’ expense. Any money obtained by selling off the salvageable barges would go towards defraying costs.
Salvors Smit Amandla Marine
By April 2010 the wreck was freed of six of the topmost barges by demolition. The seaward wall of the upper piece of floating dry dock weighing 91 tones, had been cut away to allow the barges to slide off freely. Over 2 tons of explosives were used in total. Small (125kg) explosive charges were set off one after the other to create a ripple effect that dislodged the top 6 barges, these were towed to Saldanha, and then sold.
The remains of Margaret and her cargo were further demolished down to sea level and below, and now comprise and artificial reef. Fortunately, there was no fuel or other pollutants in the stack of barges, which made the process significantly less polluting than it might otherwise have been.
Parts of the wreck look like shark fins in the water, and it is possible to see even more at low tide.
There is a small memorial to one of the salvors, who passed away in an accident on the wreck during course of the salvage operation on 24 Feb 2010.
John Charles Mitchell (55) of Durban was the blasting contracts manager attached to Blasting and Demolition Services. He had just started work with a team of demolition experts when he fell off a ladder and suffered a fatal neck injury, while preparing the barge for a blast.
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