SINGAPORE: Four Dutch crew members of a dredger that hit a bunker vessel in June 2024 and caused an oil spill pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Mar 12) to failing to discharge their duties properly.

Merijn Heidema, 26, Eric Peijpers, 56, Martin Hans Sinke, 48, and Richard Ouwehand, 49, pleaded guilty to one charge each under the Merchant Shipping Act.

Their cases were heard together in a joint hearing at the State Courts and all were represented by their own lawyers. 

WHAT HAPPENED

On Jun 14, 2024, the Netherlands-flagged dredger, the Vox Maxima, hit the Marine Honour, a Singapore-flagged bunker vessel, at Pasir Panjang Terminal.

According to court documents, the Vox Maxima lost steering control before its allision with Marine Honour – referring to when a moving vessel hits a stationary object.

This caused about 400 tonnes of oil from the Marine Honour to spill into the sea, with parts of the spillage landing along Singapore’s southern shorelines including on beaches at Labrador Nature Reserve, Sentosa and East Coast Park.

Clean-up operations took more than two months, and the full extent of the oil spill’s impact on the coastal and marine environment is still being assessed. 

Court documents revealed that on the morning of Jun 14, 2024, at about 7.58am, a circuit breaker controlling the flow of electrical power from one of the dredger’s main generators to a step-down transformer was opened so that maintenance works could be carried out.

It remained open after the maintenance works were completed sometime that morning.

Heidema and Peijpers were scheduled to take over the engineering watch on the Vox Maxima at 12pm.

According to the Seafarers’ Training, Certification and Watchkeeping Code, they each had a duty to check the condition and mode of operation of the various main and auxiliary systems, including the electrical power distribution system, prior to taking over the engineering watch. 

However, they did not do so.

They also failed to ensure that when the engine room was put in a stand-by condition, an adequate reserve of power was...