Capsized cargo ship in Georgia with 4,200 cars aboard will be cut into pieces with a giant chain, says an article published in The Drive.
A recap of the incident
The MV Golden Ray is a 656-foot-long car carrier built in 2017 at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in Ulsan, South Korea is one of the recent automotive cargo ship disasters.
Shortly after midnight on September 8th, 2019, the vessel started to list as it departed Georgia’s Port of Brunswick. She was loaded with 4,200 new Hyundais and Kias and eventually capsized in shallow water.
For more information read our article Cargo Ship Flipped! Crew Missing
Rescued operations
The Coast Guard managed to rescue all 24 people on board. But not the ship.
Salvage operations
It’s still there, and after nearly a year, the salvage operation is about to begin, the Brunswick News reports.
It involves a massive ship-cutting chain slicing through the entire vessel, cars and all, chopping it into smaller chunks that can be lifted onto barges and taken away. The operation’s director said that they expect fires.
The ship cutting chain
A massive arch-shaped heavy lift vessel called the VB 10000 will park around the capsized ship, stretch a giant chain under it and start pulling back and forth as its twin winches lift slowly lift the chain. Sort of like a two-man saw, but for 650 foot-long cargo ships.
Plan to handle the cut pieces
After it’s cut up into pieces, it’s going to be dragged out into the ocean on a barge and dumped there. The much more eloquent term for this in the salvage industry is reefing.
The MV Golden Ray will be cut into eight sections, all of which will be reefed.
What about the cars in the ship?
It is not as simple as just showing up and sawing the ship apart. The ship is still full of cars, primarily Kias and Hyundais that were bound for the Middle East. A number of cars will inevitably fall out into the St. Simons Sound as the cutting chain starts doing its task.
Arrangements to avoid pollution
Underwater nets, oil containment booms and debris response teams have been set up to try and contain any errant cars or pollution.
Still, U.S. Coast Guard Commander Norm Witt said that it is a known fact that dismantling a ship of massive size will be a messy.
Though Hyundai Glovis, the owner of the ship, is planning to rescue as many cars as it can, we have to wait to see how many cars get sawed in half.
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Source: The Drive
