MV Princess Ashika anniversary.
“Any fool could tell how bad the ship was.”
Thirteen years after the last voyage of the MV Princess Ashika, the words of Sione Mafi Kavaliku, a Marine Officer in Tonga’s Ministry of Transport have not lost their power.
Kavaliku was responding to a question from the then Acting Director of Marine and Ports about his opinion of the doomed vessel.
According to an investigation into the disaster, she was fit for nothing but scrap.
The Princes Ashika capsized just before midnight on August 5, 2009, in moderate seas while sailing from Nuku’alofa to Ha’afeva, about 47 nautical miles north of the capital.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the sinking of the Princess Ashika made its findings clear: The ferry should never have been allowed to sail, she should never have been rushed into service and she should never have been bought in the first place.
On the anniversary of her sinking, which claimed 74 lives – including 13 children aged under 10 – the report raises an awkward question: If anybody could tell how bad the ship was, how could it have happened?
“The ship sailed on four voyages in Tonga before the accident,” the Royal Commission said.
“Before each of those voyages a number of people, who should have known that the vessel was unseaworthy, could have prevented the ship sailing: the acting director of Marine and Ports, who had the power to detain the ship, the Marine and Ports surveyors through their director, the master or chief engineer of the Princess Ashika, the managing director of the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia and the board of the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia (SPC).
“None did.”
Chain of failures
The Preliminary Report said that even after the rusting, leaking ship sailed, disaster might have been averted if the crew had acted promptly. That they didn’t was part of a chain of failures that led to the disaster.
However, the report also made it clear that even if the Princess Ashika had survived that night, she was in such poor condition that eventually she would have sunk.
The Tongan Royal Commission of Inquiry declared that the ferry was unseaworthy and in an appalling condition.
“It should never have been allowed to sail in Tonga under any conditions,” the Commission said.
Any suggestion to the contrary, including claims by John Jonesse (the CEO of Shipping Corporation of Polynesia Limited until he was suspended by the Board of Shipping Corporation on November 6, 2009) and former Minister of Transport Paul David Karalus that the vessel was in good condition or well maintained were “not only patently absurd, but dishonest.”
“The evidence as to the unseaworthiness and appalling state of the vessel is overwhelming and compelling.”
The Royal Commission described the ferry as being in a frightening and horrendous condition.
Built in Japan in the early 1970s, the Princess Ashika was only ever meant to sail on the calm waters of Japan’s inland sea. She was not designed to sail in open waters. Her bow and stern loading ramps were not watertight and her design meant she was vulnerable to waves and flooding.
Fiji service
After her service in Japan came to an end she was sold to Patterson Brothers in Fiji, which operated her between the islands. By then, however, she was already in such a state of disrepair that the Fiji Islands Maritime Safety Administration (FIMSA) imposed a series of restrictions on her operations that meant she could only be used in sheltered waters on a short route.
Her hull was full of holes, her decking and sides were rusted through and she was covered in a patchwork of concrete and welded patches. She was supposed to be regularly hauled out of the water and surveyed and in her last days in Fiji she was certified to keep working for only a few weeks.
Her owners wanted to get rid of her, but even if she was sold for scrap, the cost of taking her to somewhere she could be cut up would mean a loss. Better then, to sell her. And now here came a potential customer, anxious to buy a replacement for the SPC’s failing ferry, the MV Olovaha and, according to the damning Royal Commission Report, willing to ignore the rules, dismiss all the evidence and ignore the international rules governing shipping.
The Royal Commission cited a survey of the vessel made in Fiji about six months before its arrival in Tonga: “The vessel is now 36 years old and the condition it is now in if it is allowed to trade will cause a maritime disaster . . . The vessel is beyond repair and is no longer fit for sea services of any nature.”
Failed
The Royal Commission report said Tonga’s leaders had failed to do their duties properly in the rush to replace the Olovaha. The Princess Ashika was bought from the Patterson Brothers on May 8, 2009, for FJ$600,000.
The Commission said documentation used to obtain the Tongan provisional certificate of registration had been intentionally altered to hide the significant operating restrictions placed on the Princess Ashika by FIMSA. A number of other documents that were used to support the purchase contained forged or misrepresented signatures.
“Had those operating restrictions and the reasons for them been known to the Tonga Government, it is unlikely that the Government would have approved the purchase,” the Commission said.
The report said the Cabinet, the vessel’s operator, the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia and the Ministry of Transport all failed to conduct due diligence in the purchase of the vessel, ultimately resulting in the disaster.
During the hearings, Prime Minister Feleti Sevele told TV3 in New Zealand that the ship “was tested, it passed [and] therefore it was able to get the seaworthiness certificate plus the marine insurance cover. I don’t think it was the ship’s sea worthiness that was the cause.”
Defensive
The Commission said that when answering the inquiry’s questions the Prime Minister “was defensive in many of his responses and refused to accept the obvious.”
Lord Sikotalani, aka Ramsey Dalgety, who was secretary of the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia blamed government for buying the vessel and said that he “just signed the checques.”
No recommendations were made for any criminal or civil responsibility charges.
Ultimately, the ferry’s captain, Viliami Makahokovalu Tuputupu, the SCP’s managing director, John Jonesse, the ferry’s first mate, Semisi Pomale, and the acting director of the Tongan marine and ports department, Viliami Tu’ipulotu were found guilty of the manslaughter by negligence of Vae Fetu’u Taufa, a 21-year-old mother. Ms Taufa was the sole Tongan passenger whose body was recovered.
Prime Minister Sevele did not stand for re-election in the 2010 elections. He was subsequently made Lord Sevele of Vailahi by King George Tupou V. In recent months he has been the subject of controversy over his appointment to Tonga’s National Reserve Bank.
In October 2017 Lord Sikotalani resigned as chief executive of the Tongan Electricity Commission after an inquiry was launched into unaccounted-for pension funds.
