Multraship Salvage has completed another salvage of a vessel grounded in the shallows of the Danish Great Belt. The Bulgarian-flag 38,511 dwt bulker Petimata OT RMS grounded in Danish waters on July 9, while carrying fertiliser from Ventspils to Santos.
Multraship has now completed the discharge of enough of the vessel’s cargo and bunkers, and after refloating moved the vessel to the Danish port of Kalundborg where it has been inspected and reloaded. The successful operation follows the recent salvage in the same area of the 38,391 dwt Egyptian-flag Domiat, which grounded near Copenhagen on June 7.
Multraship managing director Leendert Muller says, “It seems fertiliser exports from Baltic ports will keep salvors busy. These two jobs have justified our decision to expand our salvage operations and to react to incidents right across Europe. We undertook this job on LOF2000, and were able to use our Multratug 7 plus two other tugs, a bunker lighter and a chartered Spliethof bulker, the Apollogracht, to clear the ship of bunkers and take off enough cargo to move the ship to safety.”
A salvage team of ten including salvage masters, divers and naval architects under the direction of Muller moved 6,800 tonnes of cargo and 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil before refloating the vessel.