THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the government is going ahead with the Vizhinjam project, the bollard testing facility installed and being maintained by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) at Vizhinjam harbour remains defunct. The 500-tonne pull test facility has not seen any major activities over the past three years since the launch, which took place with much fanfare.
Though a few ships had been reportedly brought here for the test in late 2011, the facility remains idle for quite sometime, said sources.
The highest capacity bollard in the country, as claimed by CSL, was set up in a bid to determine the static pull that a newly built ship or vessel is capable of exerting under practical operating conditions with its own propulsion system.
This is a physical test performed by tying a hawser (thick rope) from a ship to a fixed bollard at shore and measuring the pull of the ship in tonnes under maximum operating conditions by means of a load cell (dynamometer) arranged between the hawser and bollard.
CSL had selected the Vizhinjam harbour citing the depth of the sea and foreseeing the construction of high bollard pull offshore vessels by CSL to meet the market demands for deep-sea drilling operations in future. Pre-engineering surveys such as bathymetry, soil test analysis and petrographic studies were carried out by CSL in partnership with the Kerala Ports Department.
Sources pointed out that the facility remained as a scarecrow for over three years. “Many of the locals have no idea about the facility and they had seen only one ship subjected to the test. It was a first anchor handling tug, ‘SCI Pawan’, being constructed for Shipping Corporation of India. In fact, the facility had not seen any activities after this test.
However, as the Vizhinjam project will be a reality soon at Mulloor, very close to the harbour, we doubt whether this facility would be properly used,” said a social worker, on condition of anonymity.
Speaking to ‘City Express’, Ports Minister K Babu said that the bollard facility was an initiative of CSL rather than the state government.
“To my knowledge, some vessels were brought here for the test. More details can be given only by CSL,” he said.
Meanwhile, CSL authorities made it clear that the bollard facility was initiated in order to test the newly constructed ships rather than getting the test done on a day-to-day basis.
“The construction of the ships is underway. So, we can bring the ships only after that. So far, we have tested around four to five ships. Hence, the allegations and rumours spread around this were false to the core. Moreover, we are planning to bring the ships other than made from CSL to the facility,” said Kala, secretary, CSL.