Tag: salvage operation

To remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship A barge carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea.Actual pumping of the oil isn't expected to begin until Saturday, but teams from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were working on the bow of the Concordia on Tuesday and divers were to make underwater inspections to identify the precise locations of the fuel tanks.They were at work on the now-hitched Meloria barge as divers who blasted through a submerged section of the third-floor deck located another body from the wreckage, bringing the death toll to 16.The Concordia ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio on Jan. 13 after the captain veered from his approved course and gashed the ship's hull on a reef, forcing the panicked evacuation of 4,200 passengers and crew.The 16 bodies found so far include the one located on the third-floor deck Tuesday. Seven of the badly decomposed bodies remain unidentified and are presumed to be among some ...

The stricken Italian cruise ship weighs 114,500 tons and is holding 2,400 tons of fuel oil

Salina Bay - equipped with several oil recovery systems The EMSA-contracted Stand by Oil Spill Response Vessel Salina Bay arrived this weekend on site of the Costa Concordia to assist SMIT Salvage, who is in charge of the bunker removal and pollution response operations. Preparations are on-going for the removal of the bunker oil from the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia. The Salina Bay will be -as a precautionary measure- on stand-by during this operation over the next weeks.The Salina Bay is equipped with several oil recovery systems, as booms, skimmer, sweeping arms and a dedicated radar slick detection system. In the worst case of pollution, she will offer directly response capabilities. Until now no bunker related pollution has occurred."We are actively supporting all efforts to avoid environmental damage" said Leendert Bal, EMSA's Acting Executive Director, "which is a modest contribution after a very serious and tragic accident."Source: EMSA

Dangerous work because of the surges of water through the broken structure Divers are working to assess the state of the wreck of the Rena after the sea conditions improved enough to enable them to enter the water.The cargo ship, which ran aground on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga in early October, split into two sections in heavy seas more than a week ago and last Tuesday most of the stern section sunk.By yesterday, conditions had eased enough to enable divers to carry out preliminary underwater inspections around the Rena.Today, Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) said divers continued a full assessment of the state of the wreck, including its stability on the reef and general condition.That work was the first stage in working out what to do next."It's extremely challenging and dangerous work because of the surges of water through the broken structure and the vast amount of torn steel and other debris," MNZ national on-scene commander Rob Service said.For safety reasons divers would not be entering the ship's holds yet.Meanwhile, the Braemar Howells container recovery team intended to inspect three containers submerged off Matakana Island this week to try to identify them and check their condition.The focus of clean-up work this ...

Operation to remove 54,000 tonnes of oil An operation to remove 54,000 tonnes of oil from a damaged tanker in Belfast Lough has finished.The Genmar Companion had been sheltering off the Copeland Islands since developing a crack on its deck on 16 December.The operation to transfer the vacuum gas oil was delayed several times due to the extreme weather.The transfer, which began on Friday night, was halted for a period due to strong winds but resumed on Saturday.A 23-strong crew have been on board the ship since the crack was detected when passing the Donegal coast.The crew are mostly from India and the Philippines and among them is a two-year-old girl.The safety exclusion zone around the tankers was lifted at midnight on Saturday.Hugh Shaw, the Secretary of State's Representative Maritime Salvage and Intervention, said: "I am delighted that the ship-to-ship transfer operation has now been successfully completed."I would like to take this opportunity to offer my thanks to all concerned with the operation."In particular I would like to thank Fendercare and the masters and crew of both the Genmar Companion and BW Seine for their professionalism in carrying out the transfer in extremely difficult weather conditions experienced over the past ...

Salvage dive team is still waiting for conditions to ease Authorities say it is still too dangerous for divers to assess the state of the shattered Rena.There has been no change in the state of the wreck since its stern became mostly submerged yesterday morning.The Svitzer salvage dive team is still waiting for conditions to ease before it can assess the condition of the submerged stern.The dive inspection will determine how the salvage operation proceeds. Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee said yesterday the wreck needs to be removed eventually and won't be left as an artificial reef.The cleanup is continuing along coastlines where oil, debris and containers washed up after the ship broke in two overnight Saturday.Preparations are underway south of Tauranga which trajectory modelling shows could be next to be hit.Oil is likely to reach beaches at Little Waihi and Pukehina from tomorrow evening, but Maritime New Zealand said that could be revised if conditions change.Booms have been put in place at Maketu and Little Waihi today. Environment Minister Nick Smith said yesterday the amount of oil that has been released from the wreck was "a single digit number of tonnes".Around 300 tonnes were released in October after the ship ...

Operation to remove 54,000 tonnes of oil An operation to remove 54,000 tonnes of oil from a damaged tanker in Belfast Lough was launched late on Friday.The Genmar Companion had been sheltering off the Copeland Islands since developing a crack on its deck on 16 December.The operation to transfer the vacuum gas oil was delayed several times due to the extreme weather.Environment Minister Alex Attwood said the operation, which could take up to 36 hours, began on Friday night.A 23-strong crew have been on board the ship since the crack was detected when passing the Donegal coast.The crew are mostly from India and the Philippines and among them is a two-year-old girl.Transferring the oil from the Genmar Companion to the BW Seine is expected to take between 24 and 36 hours.The ships have been manoeuvred together by tugs and are being held side by side. A one-mile exclusion zone has been put around the ships while the transfer takes place.The crack in the deck of the Bermudan-flagged tanker was first noticed as it passed 40 miles west of Tory Island on its journey from Rotterdam to New York.Damage is not believed to have extended to the oil cargo holding area ...

Seven oiled birds have been discovered and nine more containers are missing Seven oiled birds have been discovered on Bay of Plenty beaches and nine more containers are missing as the Rena continues to barely hold together.Conditions at Astrolabe Reef and the fragile state of the grounded ship meant salvage operations remained suspended yesterday.Containers were unable to be removed from the decks of the Rena by salvors yesterday and there were no vessels moored alongside the Rena.As confirmed at the weekend, the Rena is now effectively in two pieces but is still grounded firmly on the reef and may be still joined underneathDivers were set to examine the underside of the vessel once weather and sea conditions allowed.Light oil sheens have been reported coming from both the bow and the stern of the ship. Maritime New Zealand has said the storm conditions have washed up debris on beaches but no significant fresh oil has been seen. Some weathered oil had yesterday washed up near the Kaituna Cut.Shoreline assessment teams and clean-up teams remain on call and contractors will resume cleaning duties from tomorrow.Any storm debris will be removed from high-use beaches so beach groomers can clean any weathered oil from ...

Davy Crockett, the sleeping giant On January 27th, 2011, authorities responded to an oil sheen extending 14 miles on the Columbia River, quickly tracing it to an illegal scrap metal salvage near Camas, Wash. So much steel had been removed from the aging ship's hull that its back had broken and inner compartments were exposed to the river's currents. Davy Crockett Unified Response consisted of the Coast Guard, Wash. Dept. of Ecology (DOE) and Ore. Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), a rehearsed and practiced Pacific Northwest partnership.The 431-foot flat-deck barge Davy Crockett, a repurposed 1940s Navy liberty ship, was found leaking a cocktail of bunker fuel and other harmful substances into the environment, from compartments not readily accessible prior to the salvage operation. It was a sleeping giant of environmental blights, a WWII time capsule reminding us that our past maritime industrial practices are not gone and forgotten.The 433-foot flat-deck barge Davy Crockett continues disassembly on the Columbia River, Wash., Ore., border on May 31, 2011. Metal is cut away from the floating stern section, transferred to a decontamination barge and then to a scrap barge to be hauled away. Meanwhile salvage divers prepare submerged areas for disassembly. U.S. Coast ...

Sharks are disrupting efforts Sharks are disrupting efforts to recover containers spilled from the stricken cargo ship Rena.Maritime New Zealand said a crew charged with locating containers at East Cape could not work yesterday after their sonar equipment was damaged by sharks.The crew were back at work today with plans to survey White Island. A helicopter had also been ordered in to check for spilled debris on the shores of Motiti Island, MNZ said.A total of 17 containers were removed from Rena over the weekend, bringing the number of containers removed from Rena by recovery specialists Svitzer to 227.There were 1368 containers on the vessel when it grounded at Astrolabe Reef off the coast of Tauranga on October 5.Stormy conditions and equipment failure have hampered the painstaking container removal operation.Buckling damage caused by heavy seas is continuing to worsen on the starboard side of the stricken vessel, MNZ said.Dive crews are monitoring the damage, it said.Source: NZ Herald