February 6, 2020

Remember the ship that capsized off the Georgia coast? They're gonna start cutting it up.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/giant-crane-cutting-chain-saw-230201775.html


MV Golden Ray has been on its side in shallow water off the coast of Southern Georgia since September 8th, and now salvage crews are getting ready to begin the removal operation, which will take several months.

This accident and recovery is not without precedent, as 2 similar Auto Carrier ships sank in the North Sea in the last number of years.

The MV Tricolor and the MV Baltic Ace both sank in very busy shipping lanes and were salvaged, but with a total loss of cargo.

The Golden Ray has at least 4200 cars still onboard.

The Golden Ray;



As she presently sits, just outside the entrance to the Port of Brunswick, Georgia;



They have apparently removed all her fuel and as much of the lubricants in her main engines as possible, according to stories I have read over the months, but each individual car still has a few gallons of gas and of course, engine oil on board.

They're basically going to cut it up into chunks and haul it away, cars and all!


I hauled cars out of the Port of Brunswick a bunch of times, and I wouldn't be surprised if I carried units that were discharged from the Golden Ray. Brunswick is unique among deep water ports in the US, as it is almost entirely an automobile and rolling stock/heavy equipment port or "RO/RO" ("Roll on/Roll Off" ). The only other ships that call there are bulk cargo vessels, like those that haul grains and other large tonnage, bulk commodities. No containers are trans-shipped at all, as is so common in almost every other port in North America.

If this at all interests you from an engineering perspective, here is a 3:40 minute video of how they removed the MV Baltic Ace from a busy shipping lane near Rotterdam back in 2012;



And a 26 minute vid of the removal of the MV Tricolor off Dunkirk, France;