Amazing timelapse of Eihatsu Maru saga

While all the rest of SA is going on about defaced paintings and whether the North West Province is about to descend into a mini race war, I’ve been marvelling at this timelapse of Eihatsu Maru – the “Clifton trawler”.

Yes. I know that this is now (literally) last week’s news, but, when comparing last week’s news with this week’s news, I think I’d rather still be there.

In the words of the videographer:

What was supposed to be a single time lapse of the ship getting pulled out, ended up turning into a four day documentation of the entire event.

There were three attempts to pull the ship out, two of them failing with the rope snapping and the third being a success. The diesel on the Japanese trawler, which was also carrying fish, had to be pumped into a bladder on the beach to decrease its weight, making it easier to pull out. It ended up being quite a lengthy operation involving teams of specialised staff to operate and to offload machinery, and to coordinate the event.

The diesel was offloaded, a stronger towing point was welded to the rear of the ship and she was pulled out at high tide on Friday the 18th May 2012.

A DAFF investigation has shown that the vessel was not engaged in any illegal fishing.