A safe harbour

With storms brewing and a ship in trouble it is only too easy to picture the scene as the captain desperately tries to find a place of refuge. But historically this has not always been so easy with ports unwilling to take on such a risk. In November the International Maritime Organisation adopted two resolutions to address the issue. But, as Liz Booth reports, it is not necessarily as straightforward as all that.

E arlier this year salvors were warning that the Spanish Government’s decision to put a high price on a place of refuge is counterproductive. And International Salvage Union (ISU) president Joop Timmermans last year warned that EU Member States and coastal states worldwide were in danger of ‘losing the plot’ over the response to the Prestige spill.