ls allegedly spilt oil near Turkey, another had a collision near Singapore, while another allegedly deliberately dragged her anchor across undersea communication cables off the Finnish coast, destroying the vital link across the Baltic Sea. The Finns rightly seized the vessel. Contrary to international maritime regulations, most tankers within the dark fleet turn off their automatic identification transponders to conceal their positions.
Despite undertakings from the Houthi rebels that they would not attack tankers moving Russian oil through the Red Sea, some units of the dark fleet have rounded the Cape as part of their clandestine operations.
Similar cat-and-mouse tanker games were played after Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) declared independence from Britain in November 1965, generating a trade embargo that included a ban on oil exports to Rhodesia via the Mozambique port of Beira. Piqued by its former colony’s defiance, the British government implemented a naval blockade of Beira to enforce the embargo, and particularly the oil embargo.
For short periods, the aircraft carriers Ark Royal and Eagle formed part of the blockading force.
In February 1966, British intelligence ascertained that the Greek tanker Joanna V, in the Arabian Gulf, was bound for Beira whence her oil cargo (18 700 tons) would be piped to Rhodesia. Under pressure from the British government, the Greek government instructed the owner to divert the ship to Rotterdam and forbade the delivery of oil to Rhodesia.
Despite that pressure, and HMS Plymouth intercepting her, Joanna V continued on her course, berthed in Beira, and her oil went to Rhodesia.
A Cape Town cartoonist captured the local mood at the time. His cartoon showed the Royal Navy intercepting the tanker with a deckhand on a bosun’s chair over the bow having just added an der Merwe to the ship’s name. A British officer muttered, “Let her pass. She must be South African.”
Several other tankers arrived in Beira with Rhodesia-bound oil. Some had come through South African waters and entered Mozambique waters, beyond the reaches of the British warships.
The frigate HMS Dido was involved in an incident off Durban, apparently while en route to join the Beira blockade, although the list of ships that operated off the Mozambique port does not show her name.
From 1967, a fleet of small Dutch coasters operated on the Durban-Walvis Bay range of ports. In 1970, the South African logistics and shipping company Rennies bought the fleet, operating the ships as the Green R Line. Booked from Durban for discharge in Cape Town aboard the 827-deadweight Griqualand was a large consignment of paint and other flammable materials. The ship was due to leave Durban on Friday 13 November 1971 that, for superstitious seafarers, presented a serious omen. The Master asked if he could depart after midnight, but, as Green R Line was competing with the larger Unicorn Lines, and therefore needed to keep its clients happy, the ship had to get to Cape Town as soon as possible. Reluctantly, the Master got his ship out of Durban at sunset that Friday.
Clearing the breakwater, Griqualand altered course for Cape Town, bringing her beam-on to the swell, and, in the ship’s violent movement, some cargo shifted, giving her a considerable list. Some cargo must have broken free, and several drums of hazardous cargo must have burst, triggering a raging fire in the hold among that flammable cargo.
Thick toxic smoke and a serious threat of explosion among the cargo forced the crew to abandon the burning ship to be rescued by a Dutch freighter. Also responding to the ship’s Mayday call, the British salvage tug Statesman arrived at the scene to assist the firefighting operation. Because of the fire and toxic smoke, no one could board Griqualand to connect a towing line, leaving her to drift in the fast-flowing Agulhas Current.
Also standing by the burning coaster was the frigate HMS Dido. Fears arose that, in the current, the burning vessel would drift onto the vital offshore mooring buoy that is used to import millions of tons of crude oil. Amid the serious threat to the buoy, authorities requested HMS Dido to sink the ship, providing her gun crews with excellent target practice. They sank the coaster very quickly.
The Beira blockade ended when Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, and the Mozambique government banned Rhodesian oil imports from passing through its ports. The more circuitous and more expensive railway links carried refined products from South Africa to its northern neighbour.
When in the political wilderness, South Africa also bypassed international oil sanctions in creative ways, sometimes securing oil deals through dubious people. Now, with the ill-advised ban on exploration for oil and gas beneath Eastern Cape waters and with the dark fleet lurking, are all oil import deals open to public scrutiny?
Said to be hauling cheaper Russian crude oil to eager buyers across the globe, the “dark” tanker fleet continues to occupy the attention of western intelligence agencies. One of these vesse