Salvage of luxury car cargo ship delayed

Published on Monday 16 December 2002 00:00

BAD weather yesterday hampered a salvage operation on a cargo ship which sank in the English Channel with luxury vehicles worth £30million on board.

Salvage experts said high winds and strong sea currents had prevented divers from going down to the wreck to assess the damage.

The Tricolor, a Norwegian-registered vessel carrying 2,862 BMWs, Volvos and Saabs bound for British and US showrooms, foundered 30 miles east of the port of Ramsgate after a collision with a container ship.

The crew of 24 escaped in lifeboats and were taken to Dunkirk as the 50,000-ton, 200-metre ship went down within 90 minutes.

Smit Tak, a European salvage company, said eight vessels were currently on site waiting to begin operations.

A spokesman said: "Our first priority is to see if there is any oil leaking.

"We want to pump out the oil, but we have not been able to send divers down because the weather is very bad."

The spokesman said the firm had not been assigned to raise the ship, but that they would be making a salvage plan. He added: "That is something to be decided by the owner, but there are not many parties that are able to do it.

"We will need big floating cranes and barges and we have to try to upright the ship and maybe take out some of the cargo, depending on the state of the ship."

The spokesman likened the operation on the Tricolor to that of the Herald of Free Enterprise - which sank off Zeebrugge, Belgium, 15 years ago and which Smit Tak also salvaged.

The French warship Geranium, dispatched from Cherbourg, remained alongside to alert other ships to the Tricolor’s presence, said French coastguards.

A single buoy also marks the spot, and once the weather improves, three or four will be put up to prevent collisions with the wreck.