On the 1st of January as most of us were sleeping off New Year’s Eve, Storm Zeetje was battering the Dutch and German North Sea causing the MSC Zoe to lose over 300 containers overside. Ardent were very quick to react by chartering in several vessels including the by Hubel Marine in Panama flagged Atlantic Tonjer to assist with the salvage of the floating and sunken containers.
The Atlantic Tonjer was ready to set sail within 24 hours of receiving the contract, including mobilising a Multi-Beam Echosounder Survey spread provided by Ultrabeam. Once in IJmuiden, Ardent attached their large salvage grab to the 50t AHC crane on the Atlantic Tonjer, loaded on the tracked excavator along with some complete open topped containers.
Due to the height the containers fell from before hitting the water and the rough waters caused by the storm, none of the containers were found intact. Once they had sunk to the bottom they were tossed around on the seabed by the rough weather, spilling their contents far and wide.
Due to the complicated nature of the salvage operations the ROVOP owned Triton XLS WROV (now permanently installed on the Atlantic Tonjer) was quickly brought into action to assist with finding and identifying the containers and cargo, then assisting with the grab operations for the recovery. After 118 days on charter the salvage operation was complete for the Atlantic Tonjer as the focus moved to the shallow water targets requiring shallower drafted vessels.
During the project the Atlantic Tonjer and the Geosund recovered over 2,200 tonnes of cargo between them and over 4,000 sq km of seabed was surveyed.
See enclosed an interesting video released by the managers Atlantic Marine & Aviation LLP.
Hubel Marine is a long-established Netherlands based firm. Its focus lies on three departments, which contain the full range of advise: Registration of Vessels, Flag State Crew Endorsements and Flag related Classification Surveys.
Hubel Marine B.V. 