HM Coastguard informed that the MV Priscilla has been successfully refloated. After an initial assessment it was agreed that the ship was in safe condition to be towed to Scapa Flow, Orkney Isles.
The vessel will arrive tomorrow and will go to safe anchorage where a further assessment, including an underwater dive inspection, will be carried out.
Before the vessel was refloated, salvage operations discharged the cargo and prepared the ship for a refloat. The weather and tidal conditions were favourable and so the attempts to refloat the vessel started.
A Temporary Exclusion Zone of 1000 metres was still in place around the position of the grounded vessel, during the operations.
The salvor companies – Multraship/Ardent/Wagenborg – removed 28 tonnes of Marine Gas Oil (MGO) from the vessel before refloating the ship.
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In order to successfully set out a salvage plan, a Salvage Control Unit (SCU) meeting was held on July 24, where the salvors’ plan was discussed and approved.
Namely, the re-float operation included the following stages:
- Sea state and tidal forces, approximately 1,350 tonnes of cargo will need to be discharged onto barges, transported and loaded onto a receiving cargo vessel;
- The casualty’s tanks will then be prepared for air pressurisation;
- The casualty will then be de-ballasted and re-floated on high water. After a successful re-float there will be a brief inspection of the vessel before towing it to a safe location to facilitate further inspections.
In addition, the UK MAIB announced that it started a safety investigation of the grounding of the 89m Netherlands registered cargo ship ‘MV Priscilla‘.
