Ehime Maru High wind and waves today forced the Navy to abandon its second attempt to lift the Japanese fisheries training vessel Ehime Maru because a crucial rigging line snagged under the ship's hull 2,000 feet beneath the surface.
lift hits snag
One of 2 wires gets caught
under the hull; high wind and
waves wipe out today's effortA UH professor helps the Navy
understand Japanese traditionsBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comFollowing a 712-hour rigging operation yesterday morning, the Navy thought it had successfully completed running two crucial lines under the pilot house and engine room of the Ehime Maru's 190-foot hull.
Those wires will be used to pull special lifting plates that will make up a cradle that the civilian vessel Rockwater 2 will employ to raise the Ehime Maru and move it closer to shore and shallower water. There, Japanese civilian and Navy divers will search the compartments for the nine missing Japanese sailors, students and teachers.
Jon Yoshishige, Pacific Fleet spokesman, said last night the line under the pilot house appears to be snagged somewhere under the hull. So the Navy again will attempt to lift the 830-ton Ehime Maru.
The Navy this morning said weather is preventing any attempts to try to rig the ship. Waves were reported surging to 10 feet and wind was as high as 56 miles an hour.
The vessel was lifted about 24 feet during Wednesday's rigging operation and sustained no damage, so the Navy is confident that the operation can be repeated, Yoshishige said.
Only the line under the pilot house at the forward end of the Ehime Maru is snagged. There appears to be no problem with the other line.
Initially, the Navy had wanted to drill two tunnels under the same two spots under the Ehime Maru's hull, but when that failed last week, it had to revert to plan B and the partial lift of the stern.
Some diesel oil apparently leaked when the hull was placed back on the ocean bottom.
The Navy said a Coast Guard helicopter estimated that less than two gallons of diesel fuel appeared in the area near the operation, but it was expected to evaporate "within hours or days." Because 45,000 gallons of diesel fuel is believed to be in the ship's hull, vessels with skimming equipment have been on standby.
The Navy hopes to complete the rigging operation by mid-September so it can move the Ehime Maru 12.5 miles to shallower waters off Honolulu Airport so divers can search for the nine Japanese men and boys whose remains may still be trapped in the hull.
The Ehime Maru sank after colliding with the Pearl Harbor-based nuclear attack submarine USS Greeneville on Feb. 9 while demonstrating an emergency surfacing maneuver for visiting civilians.
Nine of the 35 people aboard the ship, including four high school students from the Uwajima Fisheries High School in Ehime prefecture in western Japan, are missing. However, the Navy now believes that only five to seven of the missing are entombed inside the ship.
A University of Hawaii religion professor says the Navy has taken pains to be sensitive to the needs of the Japanese people as it looks to recover the remains of nine people lost Feb. 9 aboard the Ehime Maru. A UH professor helps the
Navy understand
Japanese traditionsBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comGeorge Tanabe, who has been with the UH religion department for more than 22 years, was asked by Rear Adm. William Klemm, recovery coordinator, to meet with 70 Japanese and Navy divers twice this month to discuss Japanese customs and Buddhist philosophy.
Tanabe said Klemm told him that he was "very concerned that the operation could be a technical success," but an offhanded gesture or a miscue in protocol could inadvertently offend the Japanese families.
The search for the missing nine is expected to take place sometime in late September if the Navy can successfully move the ship to shallower waters. The Navy has been under pressure by the Japanese to recover remains believed to be entombed in the Ehime Maru.
Tanabe said his talks tried to help divers understand Japanese customs and the situation they will be under, especially when there will be Japanese Navy officers and others aboard the same diving barge scrutinizing their every move.
"The divers will be under a lot of stress," Tanabe said, "and it would be natural to engage in humor, but that humor could easily be misunderstood as being disrespectful."
All phases of the shallow dive recovery operation will be videotaped and reviewed by the families of the missing and other Japanese officials, so he wanted to raise the consciousness level of the divers.
For instance, if there are bodies found, said Tanabe, who has spent the past few years researching Japanese funeral practices, it would be a breach in protocol to place the body into a bag head first.
Tanabe said the Japanese place a great deal of importance in recovering the bodies of the missing sailors and students because "the dead are still perceived in physical terms. The body is believed to holding the entombed soul."
Klemm acknowledged earlier this month that recovering the remains of the nine missing men and boys means "a lot more in their culture than they would in a Western civilization. A burial at sea is a very honorable location for most seamen, but in the cultural arena that we're dealing with, it's very important to recover those remains."
Tanabe tried to impress upon the diving crew the need to always be respectful and "the need at all times to act in a dignified manner."
He noted that the Japanese were offended by the way Cmdr. Scott Waddle handled himself as he casually strolled to the courtroom during the court of inquiry proceedings at Pearl Harbor in April.
'Waddle walked to the courtroom holding his wife's hand," Tanabe said. "To some Japanese this was offensive since it displayed a level of personal sentiment where there should have been a totally professional demeanor. The Japanese believed he shouldn't have shown that kind of personal affection.
"This is a good example of something being totally innocent on our side but found very offensive on the Japanese side."