Team Herald
VASCO: A fishing vessel from Gujarat which had taken refuge at Mormugao from the Cyclone Ockhi was damaged after hitting the remnants of a capsized vessel ‘Pakistan’ on Monday.
According to available information, the Gujarat registered fishing trawler ‘Dhan Prasad (IND-GJ-11-6517)” with six crew members onboard had left from Veraval Fishing Harbour near Somnath, Gujarat on November 28 to carryout fishing activity in deep sea. While carrying out fishing activity off Diu coast, they received a wireless message warning them on the cyclone. Later, they decided to move towards Mumbai coast but due to rough sea conditions, the captain of fishing vessel decided to move towards Mormugao for safe shelter without having any clue that they would face a bigger trouble at Mormugao.
“This is the first time we have come to Mormugao to take shelter due to the cyclone. We had no clue that the place where we were heading to would put us in more trouble,” said Ramji Solanki, owner of the damaged fishing vessel.
He said, “Since we had entered into safer area (Vasco bay) we were a bit relaxed and were moving slowly towards Khariwado jetty having no clue on the existence of ship wrecks in the Zuari River. At about 2.30 pm on Monday while we were heading towards the Khariwado jetty our vessel hit the remnants of another vessel and on account of this our vessel developed a huge hole. The damage was huge due to which water started entering the vessel.”
“Luckily the incident occurred during the day and we started pumping out water. With the help of another boat we managed to get the vessel to Khariwado jetty. Upon inquiry we were told that our vessel was damaged due to remnants of a fishing trawler ‘Pakistan’ which capsized several years ago in the River Zuari,” Solanki said.
“In the past we have taken shelter at other fishing jetties and port areas during emergencies but never came across such situation where one can find so many ship wrecks in the river or near the fishing jetty. This is quite serious and the way we suffered a huge loss, I don’t know how the local fishermen are operating in the navigational channel,” he added.
