Lord of the ship

Swimming with Sharks Chapter 3.2

To live in the Pacific means to have few choices. 

Governments give lip service to safety, but unless some rich country gives a Pacific island a ship, chances are the only financial option is a rust-bucket. 

Again, Tonga found itself making that choice. This though was cynicism at the highest level; people making decisions would never sail on the boat they bought. 

The sinking of MV Princess Ashika on the night of 5 August 2009 attracted media attention in a way few other Pacific tragedies have done so. I could not get to Tonga for the drama as the only available flight was via Fiji; Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama’s regime had already locked me up once before.

Princess Ashika. From Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Sinking of the MV Princess Ashika

 Several years before Fiji shipping company Patterson Brothers, ran two ships of similar design across the strait between the two big islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. One was Princess Ashika, launched in 1973 to run on Japan’s Inland Sea. The other was the slightly larger Ovalau II, built in 1969.

 On 23 August 2003, Ovalau sank without loss of life in good weather, in the channel leaving Rakiraki. Princess Ashika rescued most of the passengers. 

Justice Devendra Pathik, sitting as a Fiji marine court of inquiry, found the sinking occurred because the engine room flooded and non-seamanship ethics were used aboard the ship. He blamed ‘the complacency of the ship-owner to admit and act upon signs of hull weaknesses.’ Trevor Patterson, he found, had ‘ignored the warning and danger signs of hull weaknesses’. On Ovalau II, Pathik found the captain was sleeping as the ship flooded, and the crew used a kitchen mop and buckets to try to bail the vessel. It was a rehearsal for Princess Ashika.

Pathik warned that owners needed to ensure vessels were seaworthy. ‘Let everyone concerned learn from the experience of MV Ovalau II.’ 

The Tongan government owned Shipping Corporation of Polynesia ran one ferry, the German aid paid for MV Olovaha, launched in 1981. It was starting to have engine troubles. Prime Minister Feleti Sevele, who ran most things in Tonga, ordered a stopgap replacement until Tonga could convince Japan to build them another ferry.

Early in 2009, the corporation’s CEO, John Jonesse, went looking for another boat. He had no marine experience and only a career of business failure behind him. For the Patterson Brothers, stuck with the laid-up and badly corroded Princess Ashika, the combination was perfect. A year before they had tried to sell it to another Tongan company for F$400,000, but their adviser took one look and walked away.

Jonesse looked, saw fresh paint and paid F$600,000. Sevele signed off on the deal. 

If leadership is about anything, it is surely about looking after the safety and security of your own citizens.

Princess Ashika arrived in Tonga, and as a Royal Commission established, anybody with any nautical skill immediately recognised the ship was dangerously un-seaworthy. No one had the courage to speak out.

On the afternoon of 5 August, passengers hoping to get to Vava’u and Haapai boarded Ashika in Nuku’alofa. The state of the ship bothered many of 128 passengers and crew.

Tevita Kanongata'a, 70, his wife Paea, 39, and their nine-year-old daughter Pasiniela, went aboard.

‘We looked around our surroundings and realised that the condition of where we were was quite different from what we saw from outside from the wharf. There came a time that we began to regret getting on board the vessel.’

The trio were persuaded by others to stay aboard. 

The ship sailed at 4.30 p.m. and by 6 p.m. was on the open ocean. It began taking on water through the bow doors and with its scuppers blocked through neglect, the water sloshed onto the vehicle deck.

In Tongan the captain’s title is that of 'Eikivaka which translates as ‘Lord of the Ship’. Captain Viliami Tuputupu went to bed.