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.
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.
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