Working around the clock for days, he and the half dozen other people on board the FSO Safer fashioned makeshift iron strips to patch a burst pipe, before divers arrived to install a permanent steel plate to keep seawater from sinking the ship.
The incident in 2020 was just one example of how a motley crew of sailors and engineers -- numbering no more than seven or eight at any given time -- have laboured for years to keep afloat the FSO Safer tanker abandoned off Yemen, and stave off an environmental calamity.
The sinking of the vessel, or an on-board explosion, would have unleashed a thin slick of oil across the Red Sea, imperilling wildlife, coastal fishing villages, lifeline ports and maritime traffic.
The United Nations hopes anxiety about the 47-year-old Safer -- which has been woefully neglected during Yemen's ongoing war -- is about to ease. That depends on the successful transfer of its oil to a replacement ship, the Nautica, that arrived off the country's coast on Sunday.
It represents a rare bright spot after more than eight years of fighting between the Huthi rebels, who control the capital Sanaa and waters where the Safer is moored, and the internationally recognised government based in the southern city of Aden.
For members of the Safer's skeleton crew, the milestone is a time to reflect on their long stints at sea with little food, no air conditioning and near-constant stress.
"Anxiety accompanies us all the time as a result of the worn-down condition of the ship," Nasser, an engineer with short greying hair and a dark moustache, told AFP.
Like other crew members interviewed, he works for the Huthis' maritime affairs authority.
"The Safer is like a front line and we have had to fight on it -- no different from a military front line," Nasser said.
- 'Unsung heroes' -
The Iran-backed Huthis praise men like Nasser as the "unsung heroes" of the Safer saga.
The villains, in their telling, are members and backers of the Saudi-led military coalition fighting in support of the Aden-based government, which they blame for a blockade of the Hodeida port that starved the Safer of needed equipment.
Yet the Huthis themselves were long accused of courting disaster by using the Safer as a bargaining chip, blocking UN inspection requests and demanding that oil revenue be used to pay the salaries of their employees.
After more than eight years without maintenance, there is no disputing the ship is in awful condition, with rust and fast-spreading fungus streaking its red-and-grey hull, whose thickness has worn away by four millimetres in places.
"Any oil ship needs regular maintenance... to keep the ship safe," said Ebrahim al-Moshki, head of Hodeida's maritime affairs authority.
"But the staff here are sometimes just three or five, while they used to be 72" before the war.
The situation would be far worse if not for the skeleton crew, said Edrees al-Shami, the Huthi-appointed executive general manager of SEPOC, the Yemeni oil and gas company.
"They worked in very risky and dangerous conditions and they were successful in patching it up. And they were not recognised. It was not publicised," Shami said.
- 'Swimming in the oil' -
Fixing leaks below deck was especially fraught given the intense heat and vapours coming off the crude, which can raise the possibility of igniting a blast from something as small as the flick of a cigarette.
"Our major problem is the possibility of ignition," Shami said.
"They worked through all these flammable gases, worked inside the oil, almost swimming in the oil, so it was very tough."
On Sunday, around the time the Nautica was arriving off the port city of Hodeida, Nasser, the engineer, visited the city's main fish market which would almost certainly have been shut down in the event of an oil spill.
The UN has said half a million people work in the area's fishing industry, and that 200,000 livelihoods "would be instantly wiped out".
"All of them would be have been affected badly," said Nasser, gesturing to the fishermen trying to unload wheelbarrows full of barracuda, parrotfish and even sharks at auction.
Asked what his plans were after the Safer is fully decommissioned, Nasser, in his late fifties, said he would accept whatever new mission maritime authorities decide to give him.
But after years of living on a vessel in danger of sinking or going up in flames, he said he wanted to take time to "catch some minutes of sleep and have a rest".
UN hands over ship for oil transfer from rusting Yemen tanker
Aboard Nautica , Yemen (AFP) July 17, 2023 -
The United Nations on Monday handed over a vessel that will take on board oil from a decaying tanker in the Red Sea off war-torn Yemen, an operation aimed at averting an environmental catastrophe.
The handover ceremony took place aboard the Nautica, which is being renamed the Yemen, in the presence of the country's Huthi authorities who control the capital Sanaa.
In the coming days, an operation is expected to begin pumping 1.14 million barrels of crude oil to the Nautica from the FSO Safer, a rusting 47-year-old ship that the UN describes as a "ticking time bomb".
The UN-owned ship arrived off Yemen on Sunday.
Monday's ceremony highlighted close cooperation between the UN and the Huthis, who since 2015 have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government based in the southern Yemeni city of Aden.
The UN had been hoping for a low-key event, but the Huthis invited high-ranking officials from various ministries as well as more than 20 local journalists to board the new ship.
As Huthi officials looked on, David Gressly, the UN resident coordinator for Yemen, signed the handover papers along with Edrees al-Shami, the Huthi-appointed executive general manager of SEPOC, the Yemeni oil and gas company.
Gressly said the ship transfer had been organised with the participation of all parties to Yemen's conflict and that it now belonged to "the people of Yemen".
However, Huthi officials have said it will fall under their control.
"The handover is to the Safer company (SEPOC) which is located in Sanaa. So Safer in Sanaa is authorised to receive the tanker," the Huthis' transportation minister, Abdulwahab al-Dhura, told AFP.
The internationally recognised government in Aden does not acknowledge Shami's authority and has named its own executive general manager of SEPOC.
- Oil in dispute -
The Nautica, purchased by the UN in March, is smaller than the Safer, with a clean, rust-free red-and-blue hull.
It is expected to moor alongside the Safer so that pumping can begin by the end of this week.
Assuming the transfer operation is a success, the oil will stay on the Nautica for the foreseeable future.
Ownership of the oil is disputed by Yemen's warring factions.
The Huthis have previously said they want to sell it and use the revenue to cover their employees' salaries.
They have also called for the completion of onshore storage facilities where the crude could potentially go.
Gressly told AFP that progress on the Safer operation raises optimism for a political resolution to Yemen's brutal war.
"It's not easy to predict the future here, of course, but the fact that everybody came together among the parties in conflict... could potentially give a bit of a boost to the process," he said.
Fighting has dropped off considerably since a truce went into effect in April 2022, though it officially expired six months later.
In April, a Saudi delegation led by Mohammed al-Jaber, the kingdom's ambassador to Yemen, travelled to Sanaa for direct talks with the Huthis, fuelling hopes for a negotiated settlement.
Hussein al-Ezzi, the Huthis' deputy foreign minister, told AFP on Monday that they would be open to further discussions, though he cast doubt on the possibility of an imminent breakthrough.
"Talks are always a positive thing, and we are open to any efforts and negotiations with any party, especially Saudi Arabia, which is the head of coalition," he said.
"Always the environment of any negotiations is positive, but the outcomes are limited."
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