Salvage companies attended emergencies in the US, Atlantic and Europe
Tugs assisted a fire-damaged passenger ship off the US east coast in June, saving crew and guests from fire and preventing the vessel grounding.
Moran Towing’s tugs towed burned-out Spirit of Norfolk to a naval station and then to a shipyard in the eastern US for repairs and investigations by national authorities.
Salvage crews towed the passenger vessel to Colonna’s Shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia after the fire was extinguished. Moran Towing tugboats 2017-built Clayton W Moran and 2016-built Maxwell Paul Moran towed City Cruises’ tour vessel from the US Navy’s Norfolk naval station to the shipyard 12 June, supported and escorted by a US Coast Guard (USCG) 14-m response boat.
The fire fighting and salvage of Spirit of Norfolk was overseen by Unified Command (UC), which was stood down when the damaged passenger arrived at the shipyard.
According to the USCG, the fire started 7 June with 106 people on board, including passengers and crew members, who were safely evacuated to another vessel.
A UC was set up with the USCG working closely with emergency and administrative agencies in Virginia and the city of Norfolk, and salvors were mobilised to assist.
The fire is thought to have started in the engineroom and passengers were mustered on to the upper deck until another tour boat came alongside and evacuated passengers and crew.
Moran Towing tugboats extinguished the fire on Spirit of Norfolk and supported salvage efforts by pushing the vessel to the nearby US Navy Norfolk naval station to keep the waterway clear for traffic.
Water from fire fighting caused Spirit of Norfolk to become unstable, but salvage contractors developed a plan to safely enter the ship and reduce instability.
By the evening of 8 June, the fire was dowsed, and Spirit of Norfolk was smouldering, while the salvage team entered the passenger vessel and deployed a pump to remove water from inside into tanks on a barge which took the contaminated water, preventing pollution entering the marine environment.
By 9 June, the fire was completely extinguished, and Spirit of Norfolk was safe and stable enough to be towed to Colonna’s Shipyard in Norfolk.
The cause of the fire is under investigation by the USCG and the National Transportation Safety Board. The UC comprised USCG, Naval Station Norfolk, City Cruises, Virginia Department of Emergency Management, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, The City of Norfolk, Port of Virginia and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In the Bahamas, Resolve Marine refloated a cargo vessel when it grounded on a sand bank. It mobilised 1976-built salvage tug Resolve Commander and a salvage team from Freeport, Bahamas to the site to assist.
Initial attempts to free the vessel were unsuccessful and two additional tugboats were engaged. After extensive propeller washing work, the cargo ship was safely refloated nine days after the grounding.
Resolve Marine also responded to a grounded oil tanker off the coast of Galveston, Texas.
A salvage master was mobilised from Houston to oversee the operation and a resource-partner tug was on the scene within 24 hours to safely refloat the tanker.
Atlantic tow and repairs
In the Atlantic Ocean, Tsavliris Salvage repaired and towed a bulk carrier when it lost propulsion off Bermuda.
Dry cargo ship 2016-built Magic Seas was en route with 60,500 tonnes of petroleum coke from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Izmir, Turkey. On 17 April, when it was 274 km east of Bermuda, its propulsion failed, and it required salvage.
Tsavliris was contracted to help and mobilised anchor-handling and towage vessel ALP Winger, with 218 tonnes of bollard pull, to assist Magic Seas from Algeciras, Spain.
On board were a salvage engineer, riggers, welders, fitters and divers, and three semi-submersible pumps of 100 m3/hr each to install in the casualty’s tailshaft space.
When salvors and divers inspected Magic Seas, they found the tailshaft had sheared off by way of the aft simplex seal and had been lost, along with the propeller.
Salvors secured the tailshaft from the engineroom side and sealed it from both sides by fabricating, then installing, a steel box on the seaside and a cement box on the engineroom side.
To reinforce the engineroom structures, additional brackets and vertical stiffeners were welded in place. Magic Seas’ towage to Izmir commenced 4 May, and it arrived 4 June after course alterations into Gibraltar for provisions and Malta for medical assistance.
Following discharge 7 June, Tsavliris deployed anchor-handling tug Leader Z, with 131 tonnes of bollard pull, from Piraeus, Greece to tow Magic Seas to Piraeus. Both arrived 13 June and Magic Seas was berthed at Salamis Shipyard with the assistance of two harbour tugs for repairs.
European salvage
In Scotland, UK, Boluda Towage was asked to assist coastal vessel Scot Mariner June 2022, when it suffered main engine failure and dropped anchor in the Inner Moray Firth.
Boluda tugs Strathdee and Strathdon (formerly owned by Caledonian Towage), towed the vessel from its anchorage to the port of Inverness and helped berth the 2,594-gt ship.
In April, Boluda’s tug VB Poder assisted in two emergencies to prevent further damage to structures and the environment in Valencia, Spain.
This tug was mobilised to refloat a metal cage from a fish farm located off the coast, off a beach at Pinedo, near the Albufera natural park. Once refloated, the 20-m diameter cage was towed to the harbour basin.
VB Poder’s fire-fighting system was required to extinguish a fire on a 25-m France-flagged yacht in a marina in the port of Valencia. There were no spills, injuries or damage to other vessels.
In France, Spanopoulos Group removed the wreck of yacht Reine d’Azur and associated pollutants using tugs and a floating crane. The yacht had suffered a fire and sank in 60 m of water off the northern side of Isle Du Levant, in the Mediterranean.
Spanopoulos deployed tug Christos XXXIV, with 52 tonnes of bollard pull, antipollution craft Antipollution 1 and floating crane Ignatios III, with 400 tonnes lifting capacity, to the wreck.
Ignatios III was used during the underwater operations for the installation, and later removal, of the diving equipment for subcontracted diving company Eirl Applisub.
Fence booms were deployed across the wreck site, covering the wreckage footprint and the complete working area of the crane and diving operations. Absorbent booms were also deployed in the radius of the working area of the crane’s boom.
The lift and temporary placement of the wreck and its waste, including the collected debris within a 50-m perimeter, were placed on the barge.
New French emergency tugs named
Abeilles International has named two of the most powerful tugs in the world for emergency response off French shores.
Abeille Normandie in Le Havre is ready to respond to emergencies in less than 40 minutes after it replaced Abeille Languedoc in the Normandy port.
Abeille Méditerranée is stationed in Toulon to provide emergency towage to stricken ships in the Mediterranean after it took over duties from Abeille Flandre.
Both Abeille Normandie and Abeille Méditerranée were converted in a German shipyard from anchor-handling tugs acquired from Siem Offshore.
They have an overall length of 91 m, beam of 22 m, a maximum speed of 18 knots, accommodation for 12 crew and a bollard pull of 280 tonnes.
This comes from propulsion systems incorporating two 8,000-kW main engines driving two controllable-pitch propellers in a 420-cm nozzle, with two 880-kW stern thrusters, two 1,000-kW bow thrusters and a retractable azimuth thruster rated at 830 kW. These salvage tugs also have fire-fighting systems to FiFi2 class.
