I watched a program recently where a contactor and his crew had the dubious task of removing the remains of a modern tanker from its watery / antarctic / Graveyard. The puzzle was to refloat the remaining half of the vessel and tow it a half a mile off shore.
The contactor signs a contract where he spends all HIS money with NO RECOMPENCE unless he reaches the target (half a mile off shore)
The ship is buried on the shore and is breaking up under the wave action.
His solution was basically to fill the holes in the craft with new metal plates, pump the craft dry and pull it to it's target.
He failed and lost $7 000 000
Which way would you have done it?
Of course everyones wiser after the event...
Yes but which way would you have done it?
Use a large enough towing barge to drag it away from the shore without bothering about filling holes... I've seen on Discovery and National Geo about such huge ships which can carry tons of rocks...
| ashok wrote: |
| Use a large enough towing barge to drag it away from the shore without bothering about filling holes... I've seen on Discovery and National Geo about such huge ships which can carry tons of rocks... |
The problem was unlikely to be an inability to tow such a large mass of ship, but to move it without it all breaking up.
At first guess it might have been more sensible to break the tanker up into smaller more manageble parts and then float the smaller parts using buoyancy tanks and tow them out.
I'm sure it is not a unique problem and the contractor in question did what he did cos he thought it would be cheaper and unfortunetly for him it was just slightly too risky.dig it out get submarine and pul it over the ocean floor, it doesn't state that it has to be ON the water, only 1/2 a mile out to the sea, you only have to refloat it on one point. Otherwise fill it up with some containers with air in them to make it float.
Why tow it 1/2 mile off shore? Why not just slice it up into small chunks and recycle the metal?
| Klaw 2 wrote: |
| dig it out get submarine and pul it over the ocean floor, it doesn't state that it has to be ON the water, only 1/2 a mile out to the sea, you only have to refloat it on one point. Otherwise fill it up with some containers with air in them to make it float. |
As an ecologist this suggestion is extremely painful to read 
The destruction that would cause, assuming the ship held together, is staggering. I doubt it would get past environmental boards (given that its in a region that has any kind of real environmental laws).
Being a tanker, I'd also be concerned about the chemicals that are likely still in the tanker. I'm sure a lot of whatever had been in the ship was probably recovered, but even bilge water is a toxic wonderland. Cutting it up for recycling is probably the safest method of disposal. Failing that and the ship HAD to be taken to its assigned location, some sort of supported barge that could be sunk under its hull and then refloated to carry and support the fragment to keep it from breaking apart in its journey would perhaps be best... though certainly not the cheapest method. | Jinx wrote: |
| Why tow it 1/2 mile off shore? Why not just slice it up into small chunks and recycle the metal? |
recycling???? what is this method you speak of, some form of ju ju???If the shore was not very high above sealevel they could have dug it up until the shoreline had moved half a mile inland. Was it a trick question?
The reason they had to get it away from the shore was because it was breaking up from the wave action pushing it onto the rocks. The project was proposed because the remains of the ship contained dangerous polutants and was causing ecological problems.
