Cougar Ace Salvage Story

[Earl Boebert]

An interesting story on the salvage of the Cougar Ace, the carrier full of cars that almost capsized near Alaska, can be found at:

http://www.wired.com/science/discove...urrentPage=all

Cheers,

Earl

[charmc]

Earl,

I wasn't going to bother at first, because the Cougar Ace story has been told many times throughout last year, particularly by shipspotting.com and cargolaw.com. Never like that, though. That is as fine a bit of writing as I've ever read. The power of the writing is that it tells the human drama of the disaster and the successful salvage. This is the first time the details of how Marty Johnson fell and died have been made public.

Great writing. Thanks for sharing that.

[mongo75]

Great story, but I'm kinda sad it didn't go down with all those damn foreign cars on board.....

[Guillermo]

Excellent dramatical writing and pro salvage work, although I don't find it particularly difficult. Sad loss of a human life.

To be credited on Cougar Ace's crew side.
- Proper securing of the cargo on decks; it didn't move in the heeling, otherwise the ship would have been lost.
- Proper keeping of the watertightness, otherwise the ship would have also been lost.

Curious: does the USA oblige to eliminate possibly contaminated ballast water so close to the Alaska coast?

Cheers.

[charmc]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

Excellent dramatical writing and pro salvage work, although I don't find it particularly difficult. Sad loss of a human life.

To be credited on Cougar Ace's crew side.
- Proper securing of the cargo on decks; it didn't move in the heeling, otherwise the ship would have been lost.
- Proper keeping of the watertightness, otherwise the ship would have also been lost.

Curious: does the USA oblige to eliminate possibly contaminated ballast water so close to the Alaska coast?

Cheers.

Guillermo,

I think the salvage effort falls into the "simple does not mean easy" category. The concept (pumping ballast) was simple, but its execution was difficult because of the huge list.

I agree with you about praise due to those who maintained the hatch seals and those who secured the cargo. That there was no shift of the 4000+ autos and only minor water leakage was a tribute to good, professional work.

Regarding your question, this is an excerpt from the US Ballast Water Regulations:

"Exchange ballast water beyond the EEZ, from an area more than 200 nautical miles from any shore and in waters more than 2,000 m in depth." http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/zebra/...egulations.htm

[charmc]

Originally Posted by mongo75

Great story, but I'm kinda sad it didn't go down with all those damn foreign cars on board.....

Those "damn foreign cars" were all shredded, same result without worrying about fuel oil leaks.

[charmc]

Guillermo,

Another take on US ballast water discharge. More paperwork coming, it seems!

http://groups.ucanr.org/Ballast_Outr...egulations.htm

[mongo75]

Originally Posted by charmc

Those "damn foreign cars" were all shredded, same result without worrying about fuel oil leaks.

True that- I didn't get a chance to read the end till later in the day. Good on Mazda to do that, just incase there might be something wrong with the cars.

And definitely an outstanding job on the salvage- ingenuity over brute strength.

[sharpii2]

Fascinating story.

I was kinda bummed out to hear that all those cars got scrapped.

I thought only government was supposed to be wasteful.

Those cars could have all been sold at a discount price with the buyers signing a waver at the end of a 12 point text summery of the circumstance the cars came from. This summery and waver would follow the vehicles from owner to owner.

I would bet there wasn't a damned thing wrong with most of them cars.