Awarded the contract to refloat the vessel over the Christmas and New Year period, Multraship Salvage mobilised its floating sheerlegs Cormorant, and the tugs Fonda and Herman, under the direction of a salvage team from Holland, accompanied by a diving team from UK based salvor Titan.

Following extensive preparations, the salvors finally started lifting on the 15th of this month. 'It was a tough job, said Leendert Muller, managing director of Multraship Salvage. 'High water levels and currents running up to between four and five knots made diving almost impossible.

Placing the lifting wires was therefore a difficult and time consuming job.

'But we needed to act quickly because we knew from previous experience, and particularly from last year's salvage of the Rostok from the Romanian Danube, that the ingress of heavy sand is extremely rapid. That proved to be the case once more. The vessel weighed around 375 tonns, but the net weight of the vessel with sand inside was over 600 tons'.

It was reported that a small amount of fuel escaped from the vessel at the time of its sinking, but the remaining fuel was successfully transferred by the salvors into tank barges.

The vessel has been successfully redelivered to its owners, while the Cormorant is heading for Bulgaria to carry out its next job.

MJ Information No: 21410