Green Lily

 

On Wednesday 19th November 1997, the M.V. "Green Lily" ran aground on Bressay and during the ensuing successful evacuation of the crew, Mr Billy Deacon, the winchman aboard the rescue helicopter tragically lost his life.

When the vessel broke up her cargo of fish and associated packaging was discharged into the sea, along with a number of cargo hatch covers and the remainder of her bunker fuel.

As a result of the severe weather, the cargo was washed ashore on the east coast of Bressay and along the Nesting shoreline.

Fortunately, the severe weather acted in the favour of the environment by naturally dispersing the spilled oil.

Following the incident close links were established and maintained with the vessel insurers Assuranceforeningen Skuld of Oslo, through their agent MacKinnons in their Aberdeen Office and Shetland Islands Council thank them for the excellent co-operation and assistance received throughout.

Following the grounding of the vessel, the immediate problems were how to deal with the large amounts of refuse being washed ashore as the wreck broke up. The greatest problem here was the large hatch covers which despite clocking in at 8 tonnes each were in fact buoyant due to the foam insulation built into the structure. Most of the hatch covers were beached on Bressay close to the island of Noss, but one or two made off towards another favorite spot for wreck debris, Nesting and Gletness.

The weather conditions immediately following the incident did not allow for the early recovery of the covers, and there was time to negotiate with the owners through their agents to secure agreement over payment of reasonable costs. It also allowed time for several options to be considered as to various methods of the removal including towage and the use of helicopters to airlift individual covers.

Eventually the conditions were suitable to try recovery and the Lerwick Harbour Trust utilised, under contract, tugs to attach lines to the covers and tow them to a safe anchorage at the deep water quay at Dales Voe, from where they were lifted ashore and taken for scrap.

The rest of the debris from the wreck consisted of wood, plastic hoops (from the packaging of the cargo) and the cargo itself - large amounts of fish. The latter were accepted gratefully by the local population of Gulls, so much so that the sky went dark over the area for some time as just about every bird in the area ate every bit of fish it could.

The rest of the packaging spread over a large area of both the Bressay and the Nesting coastlines and from there proceeded to be blown ashore in the wind to end up on various fence lines. All of this material, as far as was possible, was cleaned by the Direct Services Organisation working in teams and using expertise gained in dealing with other similar exercises.

The final bill for the clean-up operations came to close on £50,000.