Hoegh Osaka

Just watched the "salvage of sunken car carrier Tricolor" on YouTube
26 minutes long, but so interesting and some fantastic shots of the cars.

According to the Maritime press the salvors hope to right the ship today! Let us hope that the Hoegh Osaka doesn't require quite as drastic a salvage as the Tricolour which was chopped up into sections and it took over a year to do it! IIRC it even featured on the Discovery Channel as at the time it was an inductry leading salvage, never attempted before - chopping up a wreck in open seas.

News today is the refloat is off. With strong winds forecast for the next few days coinciding with spring tides, the window has closed for 2 weeks, however with the long term forecast being for a "succession of lows" it looks doubtful the spring tides in 2 weeks time will provide a weather window.

I personally think they will now wait until a prolonged weather window coincides with spring tides, as they can not risk a disaster during the recovery of the Hoegh Osaka. The worst case scenario being blocking the adjacent deep water (dredged) channel which is the only access for both the port of Southampton (the UK's second biggest port) and the Esso Fawley Refinery (which is responsible for around 20% of the UK's oil and petroleum supply).

As for the Tricolor, I remember it well as I had a number of shipping containers on the Kariba, the other vessel involved in the incident.

According to the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-30716023
The Hoegh Osaka is now afloat again (due apparently to a combination of the tide and the water being pumped out) and being towed to a "holding position" in Southampton Water.