|
Ship inquiry
will take weeks
About 2,790 cubic yards of
cement has been removed
from the ship Cape Flattery
As work continued yesterday in 4- to 6-foot seas to refloat the grounded ship Cape Flattery, the Coast Guard said its investigation of how it got stuck will not be complete for several weeks.
"We will be interviewing crew, looking at ship's logs, all the factors that go into that," said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Steve Carleton.
"The main issue right now is to offload that cement (aboard the ship), with safety a primary concern for the vessel, the environment and the workers."
As of 2 p.m. yesterday, crews removed 2,790 cubic yards, roughly half of the total needed to refloat the ship just outside Barbers Point Harbor.
As cement has been removed during the past few days, the ship is weighted with sea water for ballast and held by tugboats to keep it from moving, said state Department of Health emergency response spokesman Curtis Martin.
When enough cement is unloaded, the ballast water will be slowly removed in hopes that the boat will lift off the reef, he said.
That phase of the operation will be delicate, Martin said, since the lightened ship could bounce on the reef, damaging either the ship or the reef.
Two barges and two cranes, 14 salvage crew with Titan Marine Services and additional subcontractors are working on the project -- not including Coast Guard, state and federal agency staff, Carleton said. One of the barges holds 1,300 cubic yards, and the other holds 250 cubic yards, he said.
National Marine Fisheries Service marine biologist John Naughton said he is encouraged by reports that salvage workers have seen green sea turtles surfacing in the area. The reef is home to several dozen of the threatened turtles, he said.
Dives had been scheduled for today to check on the ship's hull and coral conditions, but Naughton canceled those dives for safety reasons after at least one large shark was seen in the area yesterday. The shark probably was attracted by a baby humpback whale carcass that washed ashore Tuesday evening.
Naughton said there is concern for the nearby reef environment, which includes a stand of lobe coral that is several hundred years old. Some cement is spilling from the salvage operation, but there is no other choice, he said.
"We've got to get that ship off the reef because if it breaks up it's going to be a lot worse damage," Naughton said.
Once the ship is removed from the reef, marine biologists will conduct an environmental damage assessment, he said.
All the cement aboard the 555-foot, Hong Kong-flagged Cape Flattery is bound for Hawaiian Cement, said company President Carl Simons. The cement offloaded from the boat probably cannot be used in regular jobs, but might be usable for some soil stabilization projects, he said yesterday.
Hawaiian Cement has a sufficient supply of cement stored to continue current contracts even if the entire load on the Cape Flattery is not deliverable, Simons said. However, he said he is optimistic that the load will be delivered once the boat is removed from the reef.
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