Maritime Experts Delay Salvage of Stricken Vessel

by unofficialsquaw.com | June 15, 2007 at 07:30 am

423 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

The latest word from Newcastle, Australia is to wait before
re-floating the grounded coal ship “Pasha Bulker”. The West gives us
information directly from the salvage team:

“The reality is that these preparations will not be
completed for the Spring tides this weekend, and the salvage team is
now looking to the next set of higher tides near the end of June.”

Svitzer’s shore-side salvage master Drew Shannon said the operation would involve up to four vessels.

“The key vessel will be the anchor handling vessel which will lay
anchors out to sea and also feed cables back to the Pasha Bulker’s
onboard winches, assisting the ship to move off the sea-bed and be
re-floated,” Mr Shannon said in a statement.

“We have successfully filled one of the cargo holds with sea water
to prevent the ship from moving and are continuing to test the fuel
lines and transfer the fuel to higher compartments of the ship.

“The tanks at the bottom of the ship are being prepared for
‘air-blowing’ to assist in forcing water out of the bottom of the ship,
as well as to create buoyancy to assist in the re-floating.”

Mr Shannon said all the preparation should be completed before the
next Spring tides, but weather and ocean conditions would be critical.

More than 20 Australian and international maritime agencies are involved in the salvage operation.

Pasha Bulker ’stuck’ until end of June

The salvage operations are being lead by Svitzer Salvage, a division of A.P. Moller-Maersk who are optomistic about recovering the vessel without environmental damage.

Read gCaptain's full story: Maritime Experts Delay Salvage of Grounded Vessel

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon