An ocean-going tug from Dutch Harbor, Alaska has arrived at container ship Maersk Eureka (IMO 9501239), which has been broken down for more than two weeks in the Pacific Ocean.
The ship was currently located some 650 miles off Dutch Harbor, AK. Maersk has said that the vessel had been forced to shut off its main engine back on March 12th to replace a damaged fuel pump. The ship was en route to Long Beach, southern California at the time.
Initially the ship was able to continue its voyage, but the main engine had to be shut off again on March 14th. The Maersk Eureka has been adrift ever since because crews feared that any restarting of the engine could cause further damage.
On Tuesday March 30th Maersk said that the tug was now with the vessel. It said that Eureka’s cargo remained “stable and secure”. Maersk had previously said that all refrigerated containers were being supplied with power.
The tug arrived over the weekend with an engineering team and repair parts. Maersk said it that it expected a progress report from the team on Wednesday local time, at which point it will have a better indication of when the ship will arrive in Long Beach.
Repairs were expected to continue. The weather remained favourable.
Maersk Eureka operates on Maersk’s Transpacific 3/MSC’s Sequoia service connecting Ningbo and Shanghai, China with Long Beach. The vessel had departed from Yokohama, Japan, on March 6th.
2012-built, Singapore-flagged, 142,121 gt Maersk Eureka is owned by Southern Hawk Shipping Pte Ltd care of Maersk AS of Copenhagen, Denmark. ISM manager is Synergy Maritime Pvt Ltd of Chennai, India. It is entered with Japan Club (Singapore office in charge) on behalf of Southern HawkShipping Pte Ltd.