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China shipping container lines' Indian Ocean grounded

Emergency response

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+31 10 454 99 11
salvage@smit.com


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Keep the following information at hand when you contact us in case of an emergency:
Initial info:
What? Where? When?

Type and cause of accident:
Fire – collision - grounding

Known damage:
What is the known damage? Where is it located?

Contact details:
Which contact details can we use at all times?

On February 3, 2016, CSCL’s Indian Ocean grounded in the River Elbe, Germany.

Falling tides in the River Elbe, meant that the grounded vessel required salvage assistance to free her from the river bank. To enable the container vessel to pivot, prior to towing her back into the river, a significant volume of sand had to be removed. Dredging capacity was provided by Boskalis by way of two hopper dredgers, one backhoe dredger and a water injection dredger. For the refloat, significant pulling force was required. To this end, two large 200 TBP Anchor Handling Tugs from Boskalis Offshore were mobilized from Rotterdam, in addition to ten local harbor tugs. The Salvage Master had in excess of 1,000 TBP at his disposal to refloat the vessel. As a result, the vessel was safely refloated in line with the salvage plan and within the set time frame, with a minimum shut-off time for the river waterway.

Related projects

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Smart

During heavy swells on the morning of the 19th of August the bulk carrier 'Smart', 150,000 DWT loaded with 147,000 tons of coal, left the port of Richards Bay, South Africa heading for China. Soon, however, the swell became too much and the vessel grounded next to the channel, less than 250 m from the coast. Just hours after the grounding, the vessel broke in two.

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USS Guardian

On the 29th of January the ‘USS Guardian’, a mine countermeasures ship of the US Navy, grounded on the North Western tip of the Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea. The prevailing North East monsoon, sea and swell impacting on the vessel were causing her to move up on the reef and she was deteriorating, hence a swift operation was required to avoid the risk of pollutants being released into the environment.

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Jin Tai

The beginning of 2012 involved the salvage case of the backacter bucket dredger ‘JIN TAI’. This backhoe dredger was working on the construction and expansion of the newly built container port of Coega near Port Elizabeth (South Africa), when it experienced a problem with one of the vessels’ legs. A cable attached to one of the three spud piles came loose, causing one of the legs to give way and the engine room start flooding.

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Kulluk

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Rig Noble Regina Allen

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Chamarel

The French cable-laying vessel 'Chamarel', 5,900 DWT, suffered an engine room fire off the Namibian coast, which spread rapidly and eventually burnt down the accommodation. The vessel drifted to shore were it grounded on the sandy beach of the Skeleton Coast, a very remote location.