New Flame stern section lifted
Titan Salvage successfully cut the stern section and engine room from the No. 5 cargo hold of the sunken freighter New Flame last week, then lifted the 3,000 ton section from the seabed off Europa Point and transported it to the Port of Gibraltar, marking a major milestone in what is believed to be the largest wreck removal operation being undertaken in the world today.
Titan Salvage teams working around the clock for ten days managed to reduce the weight of the
New Flame’s
stern by 300 tons, enabling the floating sheerlegs,
Rambiz
, to lift it free from the water and place it onboard the barge
Giant III
for onward transport to an approved scrapping facility. The lift was completed last Friday, 19 June.
‘All of us associated with the project were elated with results of this major initiative, said Jim Conroy, Titan’s salvage master on the New Flame project. “We were able to cut the engine room from the cargo hold in about six hours using two Titan chain pullers. The following day we lifted the complete engine room and stern section of the New Flame from the sea bed off Europa Point with the heavy lift crane Rambiz and internal lift bags and pontoons fixed to the hull of the wreck.
The New Flame sank following a collision while exiting the port of Gibraltar in August of last year. The remains of the wreck now lie in the open ocean off Gibraltar’s Europa Point. The ship was loaded with over 42,000 tons of scrap metal, which was being transported from New York Harbour to Turkey for recycling.
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