TAKU

scrapped

General information

Course/Position

Latest news

Beached

Beached at Alang 28.04.18

arrived Bhavnagar anchorage

arrived Bhavnagar anchorage 21.04.18

Ferry under way to breakers

The former state ferry "Taku" sailed past Singapore on Apr 13, 2018, on the way to being scrapped. It will go for close to 10 times its purchase price. Jabal Al Lawz Trading bought the 55-year-old ship earlier this year. The ferry left Ketchikan’s Ward Cove, where it had been berthed, on March 13. The company sailed it across the Pacific Ocean in hopes of finding a buyer to keep it in service. But negotiations with interests in Singapore and Fiji didn’t work out. An investor in Fiji wanted to use the Taku as a ferry. He said interests in Singapore were interested in retrofitting it into what’s called a superyacht. But all backed out. The ship will end its sailing days in Alang later this month. The state sold the ship in January for $170,000. The company will probably get about $1.5 million for the ship. But sailing it 12,000 miles across the Pacific was expensive. It cost $55,000 to insure it for the voyage. The crew payroll’s running about $2,000 a day. The fuel bill was probably just under $400,000. The ship has not been a working ferry for several years. It was laid up in 2015 because of its age, as well as budget cuts. Most of the "Taku" will be recycled. Some parts, such as generators, will be sold whole. The cut-up hull will be reprocessed into rebar.