Coastal Marin was on high alert last weekend after a 564-foot container ship lost power and went adrift several miles off the coast of Point Reyes.
The Wan Hai 176, a Singaporean shipping vessel with 21 people on board, was bound from Oakland to Seattle on Friday afternoon when it lost power and failed to anchor amid intense swells. The ship was carrying no hazardous material in its 783 containers, but it raised alarms when it began drifting southeast toward Point Reyes.
On Saturday, the Wan Hai was clearly visible on the horizon from the peninsula. By the next morning, it was anchored in place about seven miles off South Beach. After waiting out the rough weather, four tugboats pulled the ship to an anchorage in San Francisco Bay for engine repairs on Sunday evening.
The tow was coordinated by a unified command of the Coast Guard, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response and Marin County. No one was injured, and there were no reports of pollution or spills. The ship was carrying 39,000 gallons of fuel, about 8 percent of its capacity, the coast guard said.
The six-year old vessel, owned by the Taiwanese regional shipping company Wan Hai, is small by global shipping standards; the largest container ships are more than 1,300 feet long. The Wan Hai and many other ships its size had never left Asia until the pandemic upended the industry, The Maritime Executive reported. But a spike in consumer demand and freight rates last year pushed many small companies to make their first transpacific voyages.