Last Wednesday, November 20, the U.S. Coast Guard told local leaders that the wreck of the capsized PCTC Golden Ray may take more than a year to remove from St. Simons Sound, Georgia.
In fact, during a meeting of the Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Cmdr. Matt Baer (USCG), who works with the Unified Command responsible for overseeing the salvage operation, said that the vessel’s position on a soft sandbank will make the effort lengthy and challenging.
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Notably, Golden Ray is gradually shifting and sinking into the bottom, and about one-quarter of its downward-facing port side is currently 20 feet deep in sand, meaning that any attempt at parbuckling would potentially cause the ship to break up. Whereas, the vessel will be disassembled in a controlled manner and will be removed piece by piece.
It is further said that in order to limit scouring from currents and tides, salvors have emplaced a temporary layer of 6,000 tons of rock around the ship. Once the vessel is completely demolished and transferred out of the sound, the rock will be removed using excavators with sieve buckets.
Notably, more than 315,000 gallons of fuel have been removed from the vessel up until now and dive operations to access additional tanks are ongoing.
Whatsoever, according to Capt. Baer, an indefinite amount has entered the marine environment, as oil has been found along 29 miles of nearby shoreline, including areas where extremely small quantities of fuel have been found. It is lastly said that the Unified Command is regularly conducting spill response drills in order to be prepared in the event of a further release.
According to The Brunswick News report, the car carrier Golden Ray was grounded after the pilot aboard, Captain Jonathan Tennant, deliberately took it out of the channel and contributed to the best possible outcome for the incident.
Captain John Cameron, a spokesman of the Brunswick Bar Harbor Pilots’ Association, stated that he believes Tennant’s mannerisms would have contributed to the best possible outcome for the incident and that he is proud of Tennant’s leadership during the rescue of the crew.
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What is more, earlier in October, the St. Simons Sound Incident Unified Command (UC) informed that it has divers working in order to find and secure the source of an oil spill that took place from the ro-ro Golden Ray on October 1.
