The aftermath of the beaching REPORT OF AN INQUIRY

WEDNESDAY 24TH JANUARY ONWARDS
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Photograph by Mark Passmore/apexnewspix.com
Napoli in 2007. Oil came ashore at Branscombe in July, caused much concern to holidaymakers
and was carried by them into the only café on the foreshore, ruining its carpets. On or about the
same day oil was washed into the Axe estuary despite booms re-placed there in June. The boats
and gear of young people racing on the Axe that day were badly affected and much oil walked
into the Axe Yacht Club’s premises after the event. Fishermen’s boats and gear were
contaminated on the same tide.
4.10 It became clear that the prediction of potential environmental damage from oil
pollution, on 18th January, led to a swift and efficient preparation for confronting such
a consequence. However, the booms involved in the end were less than totally effective.
On the one hand, the boom originally deployed around Napoli was inadequate for the
predictable weather conditions in January to March of any year. It is reported to have
remained intact for too short a time. On the other hand, a boom was put across the Axe
in February without notice to fishermen and had to be opened within days so that they
could be about their business. It was replaced in June, for predictable reasons but again
with no notice. Yachtsmen were trapped inside it and, worse, outside it. Unable to
reach their own moorings the latter had to go elsewhere, often some distance, and
then pay for a berth. Some had to cancel planned holidays as a result. It is clear that the
boom was in the end inefficient or inefficiently manned, for oil entered the Axe estuary
despite it. That appears to have done no environmental damage but inconvenienced
many. In local terms little seems to have improved since the Rosebay incident affecting
the Erme estuary in 1989. We were told that Axmouth fishermen were compensated
swiftly, not so others.
MSC Napoli The aftermath of the beaching Report of an inquiry 23