Run aground in the Solent: how to rescue an ailing giant?
There is something ludicrous about it. A massive, still, white superstructure and tawny brown hull slimed with green weed all hopelessly and publicly displayed at the wrong angle.
The still prop at her stern sticking motionless out of the current-charged froth of the Solent – the gulls flocking and wheeling around this sudden addition to their seascape.
The 200 metre exclusion zone is mercifully quite relaxed in its imposition.
At half that distance we can see a salvage engineer emerging briefly from a deck hatch at a crazy angle. His blue tug holds against the current, halfway along the deck side.
Stern view and salvage tug pic.twitter.com/Z0sCg3HA7z
— alex thomson (@alextomo) January 5, 2015
At Hoegh Osaka’s stern the massive doors clamped safely shut for the long voyage-that-never-was.
Those in the know as she pushed on to the Brambles sandbank appear to have been few.
It seems one crew member was in the water, another injured falling down stairs. It suggests that whatever happened on Saturday night at 9.20 happened very fast indeed.
— alex thomson (@alextomo) January 5, 2015
A rapid and potentially disastrous sudden capsize into deep water apparently averted, the immediate priorities now are different.
First off – what to do about the 500 tonnes of heavy fuel oil still aboard. A human disaster must not become an environmental one in these prized waters.
The Solent’s latest maritime shipping hazard pic.twitter.com/O6zeVRvZyh
— alex thomson (@alextomo) January 5, 2015
Then – the integrity of her structure and that of the cargo must be painstakingly assessed. It is possible that a sudden cargo shift precipitated this rapid sandbank berthing.
That will likely take some time, as will the various options at hand to attempt to safely pull her off the bank or refloat her – or most likely a precarious and very, very expensive mixture of both.
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