Foundered Freighter Continues to Frustrate Salvagers

For the last eight months, the New Carissa has been the shipwreck that would not die.

Now, with winter weather looming, salvage crews hope to finally haul the freighter’s cracked and charred stern off the beach to join the broken bow in a burial at sea.

But like everything else in this star-crossed salvage operation, nothing is coming easily.

“This is day 245,” Bill Milwee, a representative of the ship’s Japanese owners, said Monday after another high tide passed without the wreck coming off the beach. “We’re getting very close to winter weather setting in. We’re late in the game.”

Milwee said a support shoe on the rudder may be digging into the sand, making the ship like a sled without any snow.

The 541-foot freighter ran aground Feb. 4 when it dragged its anchor while waiting to enter Coos Bay to pick up a load of wood chips.

Since then, there has been one problem after another.

A harbor pilot tried to pull it off the beach with its own engines, but failed. While waiting for a break in rough weather for a salvage tug to make its way down the coast, the ship bounced and twisted in the surf, breaking cracks in the hull and releasing thousands of gallons of fuel oil that fouled beaches and shorebirds.

With the ship’s back broken and pressure growing to prevent further oil leakage, a joint command made up of Milwee, the Coast Guard and the state decided to take a desperate step.

A Navy demolition team placed explosive charges and Bangalore torpedoes throughout the ship to crack open the fuel tanks and set ablaze the thick, gooey fuel oil. The first attempt fizzled, but a second try lit up the evening sky with a tower of flame as crowds of spectators watched from a nearby ridge.

But the fire did not consume all the oil, and more was released as the ship, weakened by the constant pounding in the surf, broke in two.

After 20 more days, the joint command lit victory cigars and gave each other high fives as an oceangoing tug using a special cable pulled the bow section off the beach, but the celebration was short-lived.

In a severe storm, the cable parted, and the bow soon was back on the beach. After much more tugging, the bow eventually was towed far out to sea and sunk. But the stern continues to resist.

“It’s kind of like watching grass grow,” said salvage supervisor Arnold Witte.

Salvage workers continued trying to dredge a channel through the sand Monday evening.