GOLDEN RAY SALVAGE DELAYED - AGAIN

 11 October 2020: About a year back, we brought you the story of the South Korean car carrier that grounded then capsized just south of Savannah, Georgia near St.Simons Island. Some of the removal of bits and pieces (the propeller, part of the shaft, rudder) had already been achieved and the balance - the major part - the cutting up and removal of the hull itself had been scheduled to begin this month, October, and all preparations were set to go ... until.

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An engineering problem has forced another delay before salvage crews can start removing an overturned cargo ship that’s been partially submerged on the Georgia coast for more than a year, officials said Wednesday.

 

The multi-agency command overseeing the salvage of the South Korean ship Golden Ray had hoped to start cutting the giant vessel apart in early October. The command released a statement Wednesday saying it will be “several weeks” more before crews can begin dismantling the ship.

That’s because engineers have to troubleshoot a problem with the anchoring system they designed to steady the towering, floating crane that will be used to slice the 656-foot (200-meter) ship into giant chunks.

One of the five anchors failed a strength test to prove it could hold against the required tonnage, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Himes, a command spokesman.

Asked if the delay means cutting won’t start until at least November, Himes said he didn’t know.

“Monitoring and assessments show the wreck is still intact and it’s still stable,” Himes said. “There’s been no emerging environmental impact.”

The Golden Ray capsized Sept. 8, 2019, off St. Simons Island, about 70 miles (200 kilometers) south of Savannah.

The ship had just left the Port of Brunswick with 4,200 automobiles in its cargo decks. The vehicles remain onboard. 

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Experts decided the ship was too badly damaged to be removed intact, and instead came up with a plan to slice it into eight massive pieces for removal by barge.

A busy Atlantic hurricane season as well as a handful of coronavirus infections among members of the salvage team had already delayed the ship’s removal. The command has booked an entire resort nearby through Jan. 21 to isolate 100 salvage workers as a safeguard against the virus.

The Coast Guard held hearings on the cause of the shipwreck last month. An expert concluded the Golden Ray tipped over because unstable loading had left its center of gravity too high. Coast Guard Lt. Ian Oviatt said the ship lacked enough water in its ballast tanks, used to add weight at the bottom of a vessel, to offset that of the vehicles in its cargo decks above.

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Eventually, this problem will be solved and the process will get underway. I think it will be fascinating to see how it's carried out. We will try to bring you further info as we get it.

Until next time, 

                                  Fair Winds, 

                                    Old Salt

 

CRUISE SHIPS SCRAPPED

 4 October 2020: Well, surprise surprise! Somehow, summer has slipped away when we weren't looking - or maybe we were sheltering in place and missed it - but here we are in autumn. The leaves are turning brilliant colors and the amazing blue of the sea is calling us for a last ride or two out on the deep. Boats will soon be hauled and covered, safely dry on the hard until next spring when the cycle begins all over again, hopefully in a more "normal" manner! And while we all have suffered the hardships of the worldwide pandemic, perhaps no industry has been as visibly hit as the cruise industry. And not only because people aren't taking cruises, but ships in port are costly and troublesome. But one man's troubles can become anothers good fortune. From the Guardian:

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ALIAGA, Turkey - Business is booming at a sea dock in western Turkey, where five hulking cruise ships are being dismantled for scrap metal sales after the COVID-19 pandemic all but destroyed the industry, the head of a ship recyclers’ group said on Friday.

Cruise ships were home to some of the earliest clusters of COVID-19 as the pandemic spread globally early this year.

In March, U.S. authorities issued a no-sail order for all cruise ships that remains in place.

On Friday, dozens of workers stripped walls, windows, floors and railings from several vessels in the dock in Aliaga, a town 45 km north of Izmir on Turkey’s west coast. Three more ships are set to join those already being dismantled.

 

Before the pandemic, Turkey’s ship-breaking yards typically handled cargo and container ships, Kamil Onal, chairman of a ship recycling industrialists’ association, told Reuters.

“But after the pandemic, cruise ships changed course towards Aliaga in a very significant way,” he said of the town. “There was growth in the sector due to the crisis. When the ships couldn’t find work, they turned to dismantling.”

Onal said some 2,500 people worked at the yard in teams that take around six months to dismantle a full passenger ship. The vessels arrived from Britain, Italy and the United States.

The shipyard aims to increase the volume of dismantled steel to 1.1 million tonnes by the end of the year, from 700,000 tonnes in January, he said.

“We are trying to change the crisis into an opportunity,” he said.

Even the ships’ non-metal fittings do not go to waste as hotel operators have come to the yard to buy useful materials, he added.

 Click link for amazing video of the beaching process:

 

https://youtu.be/I1a6772DuCs

Sad to see, indeed.

Until next time, 

                        Fair winds,

                                Old Salt 

WWII SUB FOUND IN S.E. ASIA

 26 September 2020: Sorry the for the delay in posting - a few health issues in the office precluded getting this out in a timely manner. This post appeared recently in the NY Times and Navy Historical Foundation. And yes, it's another wreck story - but continuing in the tradition of the amazing number of WWII wrecks that have been discovered this year. 

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In the murky waters of the Strait of Malacca, about 90 miles south of Phuket, Thailand, four divers discovered a World War II submarine that was scuttled 77 years ago, now teeming with marine life.

The wreckage, which is believed to be the U.S.S. Grenadier, was first located last October by the divers Jean Luc Rivoire, Lance Horowitz, Benoit Laborie and Ben Reymenants, the team announced this month.

 

Over the subsequent six months, the men — one of whom, Mr. Reymenants, assisted in the 2018 rescue of the boys’ soccer team that was trapped in a cave in northern Thailand — completed six carefully planned dives to study and identify the submarine, Mr. Horowitz, 36, said on Friday from Phuket.

After taking measurements of several parts of the submarine, including the hatches and capstans, and comparing them with technical drawings from the National Archives and Records Administration, the men felt confident that they had located the Grenadier, he said.

“It was as good as we were hoping for, really,” Mr. Horowitz said of the team’s $110,000 expedition. “I think a lot of people dream of finding, or discovering, or stumbling upon something that has some historical importance to it. It was a very powerful feeling; it was wonderful.”

The Grenadier, named after a deep-sea fish with a long body and a short, pointed tail, is more than 300 feet long and weighs 1,475 tons, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command, which is responsible for the preservation, analysis and dissemination of American naval history. The ship was found sitting upright more than 260 feet underwater, the divers said in a statement, adding that it was partly covered with fishing nets.

 

The next step for the divers is to have their findings verified by the naval history command. The data associated with each discovery — videos, photographs and measurements — is assessed against archival and historical records, according to Robert Neyland, the head of the command’s underwater archaeology branch. The process to verify this submarine would most likely take a few months, he added.

                                             USS Grenadier off New Hampshire 1941
 

“Confirming the identity of any potential discovery, as in the case of U.S.S. Grenadier, is a process that is given much weight by the U.S. Navy, as it not only affords legal protections to the site through the Sunken Military Craft Act, but the act can also provide closure to the families of those sailors lost in the line of duty,” Dr. Neyland said in an email.

Before the Grenadier met its demise, it sank six ships, according to the Navy.

On April 20, 1943, the submarine spotted two merchantmen and approached for an attack. The next day, while on the surface, the Grenadier spotted and was spotted by a Japanese plane. As the ship submerged itself for safety, it was shaken by bombs, the Navy recounted, forcing the submarine to plummet to 267 feet below the surface.

While the hull and hatches were badly leaking, a fire had also broken out, causing more chaos, Lt. Cmdr. John A. Fitzgerald and five other men later recounted.

In the early morning hours of April 22, two Japanese ships were spotted in the distance. Robert W. Palmer, one of the sailors aboard the Grenadier when it was struck, wrote in “The Silent Service in World War II” that the men then used several types of firearms, including 20-millimeter guns, rifles, pistols and Tommy guns, to fire at another plane, which ultimately dropped a bomb nearby.

Before scuttling the submarine, the men destroyed a coding machine with hammers, Mr. Palmer said, adding that the torpedo data computer and radio gear were all intentionally damaged by the crew. Documents, he said, were thrown overboard with weighted bags.

All 76 crew members survived the attack, but they faced an uncertain future.

After the skipper ordered all men into the water, they were picked up by a Japanese armed merchant ship, Mr. Palmer said. They were taken to a commandeered Catholic school in Penang, Malaysia, where they were tortured.

“Beating, burning, breaking fingers with bamboo or pencils between them were perpetrated on the men by Japanese soldiers who sneered and joked,” Mr. Palmer wrote. The captives were forced to sit or stand in silence in an attention position, he said: “Any divergence resulted in a gun butt, kick, slug in the face or a bayonet prick.” The crew’s Japanese captors also used tactics like pushing the blade of a pen knife under the fingernails to get the men to talk about their submarine, he wrote.

“This was the beginning of 28 and a half months of similar treatment for most all of the crew and officers alike,” he said. Four Grenadier crew members died in Japanese captivity.

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An interesting tale, and sadly not unique in it's outcome. 

Until next time, 

                      Fair Winds. 

                          Old Salt