MOSSEL BAY  – A massive, highly familiar and much-photographed feature of the Mossel Bay coastline will disappear soon.

The Mossel Bay Advertiser has learnt from a reliable source that the PetroSA rig, called the Orca, in the bay of Mossel Bay, has been sold and will be towed away on or around 31 January.

Apparently a sales agreement was signed this week and the deposit was to be received three days after the sales agreement had been signed, according to the contract.

The source said it was sold to a Johannesburg businessman for about R22 million to be used as scrap metal.

Preparations for the towing away of the Orca were to start on Wednesday, 12 January, when the project manager of the buyer of the Orca, was to board the rig. He will stay on board until “tow day”.

The Advertiser has asked PetroSA for information on the sale and planned removal of the Orca but no comment has been received.

The disused Orca, seen by some as a monstrosity marring the Mossel Bay seascape, has been photographed by many people, at different times of day, and in all types of weather. Sunset and sunrise photographs with the Orca in the background abound.

Many have complained that the presence of the Orca in the bay has cost millions of rands of taxpayers’ money over the years.

In June last year the Orca made the news when a homeless man was washed seven kilometres from the beach at Great Brak to the Orca in extremely rough sea conditions. He was treated for hypothermia and later arrested by police, because the rig was state-owned and unauthorised persons could not access the Orca.

The man was set free, however, with no charges brought against him.

He admitted it was “God’s grace” that the current had washed him to the Orca, because he would probably have drowned otherwise.