(Commonwealth) _ The windows were pelted by rain. The ship’s steel hull was battered by a ferocious sea, and the wind howled with ancient might. In the summer of 2010, it was late at night. A cargo ship with a length of 230 meters named Kota Kado has grounded outside the harbour of Hong Kong. Captain Nick Sloane, the salvage master, was waiting on the bridge in his life jacket, ready for the worst even though her crew had left. He saw the typhoon’s power as it tore through the wrecked ship in the shadows.
Just five other members of the salvage squad were there where Sloane was holed up. They had arrived in the South China Sea a few days earlier with the intention of rescuing the Kota Kado. Sloane decided to spend the night aboard the grounded ship with a minimal crew when typhoons were expected to pummel it. Knowing that this would influence whatever actions they made next, he wanted to feel how the ship bent in the storm and understand where it impacted her most. Yet it was a razor-thin difference. Almost 90% of the world’s trade is transported by cargo ships, but they don’t always arrive at their destination without a hitch.
When Sloane’s phone rang and he initially learned that the Kota Kado had encountered problems, he was returning from a World Cup game in South Africa. Sloane is currently a director with Resolve Marine Group. That day, he took a plane to Hong Kong. On the route to port, the ship ran into a reef, which tore a hole in her side. She started to sink, two cargo holds started to fill with water, and she finally slammed into a mud bank some 25 nautical miles (46 kilometers) southwest of her target. She became trapped when her bow pierced the ocean floor. And as additional water swamped the ship, it started to sink due to its heavy load.
Sloane and his colleagues devised a strategy to lighten the vessel and remove as much water as they could. This called for lighters, or barges, which are available in Hong Kong with substantial cranes. Fortunately, there were several of these barges available, and their operators were used to heaving containers off boats for conveyance to shore because this is how cargo is frequently unloaded in Hong Kong. Sloane wanted to eliminate as much cargo as possible. In the end, more than 1,200 different containers were freed by the lighters.
The enormous snorkels came next. Sloane and his team submerged enormous pumps at the bottom of one of the cargo compartments in order to drain the water from the ship. Also, they took out hatches on the deck above, welded enormous rectangular tubes, or snorkels, onto them, and then replaced the hatches. The snorkels were now dangling into the ship’s belly. Lastly, two sets of hoses that stretched vertically up through the snorkels were linked to the pumps below by a group of divers. Sloane recalls that the pumps worked nonstop to prevent the engine room, which houses the most expensive and delicate gear, from becoming submerged.
To monitor how the hull moves and flexes during the process, salvage workers will install sensors all over it. These sensors’ data automatically flow into the model, which then indicates when a specific area of the ship may be at danger of cracking. Lasers pointed towards a damaged ship may also be used by salvors to closely observe its movements.
Nevertheless, Blazejczyk notes that, often, this is not near enough to release a grounded vessel on its own. Tugs that attempt to pull ships free also apply considerable forces. This is due to the tugs having to battle against what is known as the ground reaction force.
