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  Channel NewsAsia 3 Jan 06
Two Singapore-registered barges with no crew on board found on Malaysian beach
By Hasnita A Majid

Today Online 4 Jan 06
How did something as massive as this go missing?
Leong Wee Keat

New Straits Times 3 Jan 07
Mystery barges had drifted away from tugboat

New Straits Times 2 Jan 07
Mystery found : Barges come out of nowhere
Shahrum Sayuthi

ROMPIN: Mystery surrounds the discovery of two huge barges beached near Kampung Pantai Jawa, about 20 kilometres from here, on Sunday.

The Singapore-registered vessels did not have any cargo on board. The nearest area where such barges usually operate is off the coast of Pengerang, Johor, where they are used to transport sand for reclamation purposes.

Villagers, who spotted the barges off the coast here, had at first thought that they were massive mounds of entangled logs adrift at sea. However, they were shocked when the "mounds", each about the length of two football fields, turned out to be unmanned barges.

The barges, which were two and three-storeys high, settled on the sand during low tide at the Laut Tiga beach near the village about 6.30pm. One of the barges bears the markings "Winbuild 1802 Singapore", and the other, "Pulau Tiga 1308 Singapore".

Villager Ismail Mat Taib, 48, said he first saw the drifting barges while herding his cattle near the beach about 4.30pm. "I thought they may be mysterious islands which had surfaced unnaturally from the bottom of the sea," he said.

Ismail then alerted the other villagers, who gathered to watch the barges as they drifted, 500 metres apart, towards the beach. The incident happened during clear weather although the sea was choppy with huge waves.

Another villager, Hashim Ahmad, 60, said he and his friends were getting ready to rescue the crew of the barges. "We were all surprised when it turned out that there was no one on board." Umno Bandar Baru Rompin branch chief Mohd Kassim Salim, 42, who joined the villagers at the beach, tasked some of them with ensuring the security of the barges until the police arrived.

"We also tied up the barges to prevent them from being swept out to sea again," he said.

A police spokesman said efforts were being made to trace the owner of the barges.

New Straits Times 3 Jan 07
Mystery barges had drifted away from tugboat

ROMPIN: The mystery of the beached barges near Kampung Pantai Jawa has been solved.

The Singapore-owned vessels drifted away from a tugboat, MT Kappa, during a thunderstorm about 210 nautical miles off Kuala Terengganu, about 2am last Wednesday. It is believed that the cable linking the Pulau Tiga 1308 and Winbuild 1802 to the tugboat snapped.

The vessels eventually landed at the beach about 20km from here on Sunday. The barges, bought by Pacific Ocean Engineering and Trading Company Pte Ltd of Singapore from China, were in the process of being towed to the republic when the incident occurred.

The company has appointed a Kemaman-based agent, Terus Maju Logistic, to salvage the barges. Terus Maju managing director Abdul Karim Abdul Rahman said he had expected the barges to drift towards Terengganu, but never thought they would beach here.

He said the barges were multi-purpose vehicles and not built to transport sand for reclamation purposes, as had been reported. Terus Maju is expected to take the vessels back to sea in the next few days.

The Marine Department for the eastern region confirmed that a report had been lodged on the missing barges last Thursday. Its Human Affairs and Ports Division head, Jasari Awang Mohamad, said the barges were outside Malaysian waters when they went missing.

Pahang marine police commanding officer Assistant Superintendent Mohd Pajeri Ali said three marine police officers and several policemen were taking turns guarding the barges.

He said villagers had helped police to ensure that the vessels were safe. He said neither the owner nor the tug-boat operators had lodged police reports when the barges were adrift.

"The tug-boat captain should have made a police report as soon as he reached Singapore. We have yet to receive any report from them. "The barges could have damaged other vessels in the sea" he said.

Pajeri added that the results of preliminary investigations had been passed to the Kuala Terengganu Marine Department for further action. The barges surprised villagers and police on Sunday, as no one knew who they belonged to.

Today Online 4 Jan 06
How did something as massive as this go missing?
Leong Wee Keat

FOR 10 days, the two barges drifted along unmanned like ghost ships in the South China Sea--going unnoticed by other ships and the authorities searching for them. But on Sunday, they were finally found beached off the town of Pantai Jawa in Pahang and yesterday, the owner of the two Singapore-registered barges, Pacific Ocean Engineering and Trading, laid claim to their $2.5 million worth of assets.

A clearer picture has also emerged of how the huge structures--each the length of two football fields and weighing 6,308 tonnes in all--went missing on a routine trip home.

According to Pacific Ocean, the two barges--named Winbuild 1802 and Pulau Tiga 3708--were being towed by a tugboat from Shanghai to Singapore when they encountered rough weather off the coast of Vietnam on Dec 21. Subsequently, a towline dragging the two barges broke and they were separated from the tugboat.

Due to the weather, the manned tugboat failed to find the two barges, which were not carrying any loads. The missing barges were reported to the Vietnamese authorities as well as to the Maritime Port Authority (MPA) and the Singapore police. Ships in the area were also informed about the drifting barges, but did not report any sightings. There were no reports of collisions with the unmanned barges.

Pacific Ocean director Jacky Quah said although "anything could happen out in the sea, ships with radars should not have any problem avoiding them". He added that representatives have been sent to Pantai Jawa to bring the barges back.

An MPA spokesperson declined comment, citing ongoing investigations.

According to Malaysian newspaper The Star, villagers of the Pahang town are keeping watch on the structures. Village representative Mohd Kasim Salim said 60 villagers had been "assigned" to watch over them. "We think they could be worth a lot and something could be stolen if we do not look after them," he said.

Channel NewsAsia 3 Jan 06
Two Singapore-registered barges with no crew on board found on Malaysian beach
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE: The two unmanned Singapore-registered barges, found beached on Malaysia's east coast on Sunday, were on their way to Singapore from China when they were hit by bad weather.

Owned by Singapore-based company Pacific Ocean Engineering and Trading, the vessels - "Winbuild 1802" and "Pulau Tiga 3708" - are newly-built and were making their way to Singapore when the tow line snapped in bad weather off the coast of Vietnam on the 21st of last month, causing them to drift for miles - about the distance from Singapore to Thailand.

The tug boat, on failing to find the vessels, then proceeded to Ho Chi Minh City (in Vietnam), where crew members reported the incident to the Vietnamese authorities as well as to the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore and the Singapore police.

Pacific Ocean said that it also received help from the Vietnamese port authorities to search for the missing barges, by air and sea. However the effort proved futile in rough seas, which saw waves of up to 5 metres high.

The company told Channel NewsAsia it suspected the barges had drifted towards Malaysia, but could only confirm this on Tuesday evening. "We thought that it cannot drift to nowhere, it must be grounded somewhere. It's a matter of who found it first and it just happened that we got a call from our shipping agent in Malaysia and told us some of the villagers in Kuala Lumpin saw the barges grounded at the beach," said Gary Quah, Manager, Pacific Ocean Engineering and Trading.

The company, which has been operating since 1990, says it is making arrangements to have the vessels towed to Singapore by Thursday.

It's investigating the incident including how the steel wires could have snapped in bad weather. Pacific Ocean adds that this is not the first time such an incident has happened. The first time a similar episode happened was two years ago, when it again lost another one of its vessels in bad weather. - CNA /dt
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