The ship had about 22 mooring lines to bollards. First the bow lines started breaking. The tug contracted to hold the ship alongside was not powerful enough, as a single unit, due to windage area and length to hold her.
Finally the stern lines broke and the ship was blown onto the Finger Jetty at the opposite quay. It collided square on with the tanker "Marlin", which had broken down off the south coast and was towed into Algoa Bay and finally Ngqura.
The wind slewed the container vessel bow-on towards the quay, where the superstructure of the Durban-based pilot boat "Orient" offered little resistance to the immense weight after the boat could not be taken to safety in time.
The pilot boat’s hull escaped with little apparent damage but her upperworks were smashed. The harbour tug too had been pushed by the weight and size of the container ship onto the east quay. The "MSC Luciana" was in a very light condition due to the discharge of cargo. Cargo work had been stopped at a wind speed of 70km/h, the wind speed later increased up to about 155 km/h. There was one injury, one crewman on another container ship was hit by one of the breaking mooring lines which broke his leg. The "MSC Luciana" left Durban again on Jan 13 bound for Colobo, where it docked on Jan 22.
The pilot boat’s hull escaped with little apparent damage but her upperworks were smashed. The harbour tug too had been pushed by the weight and size of the container ship onto the east quay. The "MSC Luciana" was in a very light condition due to the discharge of cargo. Cargo work had been stopped at a wind speed of 70km/h, the wind speed later increased up to about 155 km/h. There was one injury, one crewman on another container ship was hit by one of the breaking mooring lines which broke his leg. The "MSC Luciana" left Durban again on Jan 13 bound for Colobo, where it docked on Jan 22.
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