Navy modifies effort The Navy has again modified its deep water operations off the coast of Oahu as it tries to raise the sunken Japanese fisheries training vessel Ehime Maru and move it into shallower waters to search for the remains of nine people who still are missing.
to raise Ehime Maru
to find missing crew
The ship will be taken to waters
shallow enough for diversBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comThe bow of the 190-foot Ehime Maru became stuck in mud 2,000 feet on the bottom of the ocean nine miles south of Diamond Head after earlier attempts to raise the vessel failed.
Initially, the Navy had planned to pass heavy lifting wires through the hawse pipes, where the anchor chain passes, with a plate at one end to keep the bow from slipping. The new method calls for crews to thread a doubled-over cable down the starboard hawse pipe, wrap it around the bow, and then thread it up the port hawse pipe.
The Navy said engineers believe the new method is safer because most of the weight would be distributed around the bow, which is stronger than the hawse pipes and backing plates.
The Ehime Maru would then be moved to more level ground where special metal lifting plates will be placed beneath the bow and stern of the vessel.
The Navy will then move the Ehime Maru 12.5 miles to a point one mile south of the Honolulu Airport's reef runway. Japanese and Navy divers will then search for the nine missing people who were lost when the Ehime Maru was struck by the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville.
The unprecedented recovery operation has cost more than $60 million and has been hampered by delays caused by weather and engineering problems. The Navy says that it should known by the end of next week whether the Ehime Maru can be lifted.
The last two weeks have been spent dredging around the bow of the Ehime Maru to clear the hawse pipes, which had been covered with mud. Two of the Ehime Maru's anchors have been recovered during the operation.