MV Tricolor was a 50,000 tonne Norwegian-flagged vehicle carrier built in 1987, notable for having been involved in three English Channel collisions within a fortnight.
A salvage tug, known also historically as a wrecking tug, is a specialized type of tugboat that is used to rescue ships that are in distress or in danger of sinking, or to salvage ships that have already sunk or run aground.
Empire Sandy is a tall ship providing chartered tours for the public from Toronto, Canada. She was built as an Englishman/Larch Deep Sea-class tugboat for war service by the British government in 1943. After the end of World War II she was renamed Ashford and then Chris M before reverting to the original name of Empire Sandy and being converted to a schooner.
Mighty Servant 3 is a 27,000-ton semi-submersible heavy lift ship. Its deck is 40 by 140 m. The vessel was built in 1984 by Oshima Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. in Ōshima, Japan, for Dutch shipping firm Wijsmuller Transport, which merged in 1993 with Dock Express Shipping to become Breda-based offshore heavy lifting group Dockwise Shipping B.V.
MV New Flame was a Panamanian bulk-carrier cargo ship. It collided with an oil tanker off Europa Point, the southernmost tip of Gibraltar on 12 August 2007, and ended up partially submerged in the Strait of Gibraltar. The vessel broke into two in December 2007 amid numerous unsuccessful recovery efforts. The cargo was salvaged and the stern section removed for scrap. Following the crew's rescue, the captain was arrested for having departed without authorisation. Charges of endangering shipping were later dropped.
Boskalis Westminster N.V. is a Dutch dredging and heavylift company that provides services relating to the construction and maintenance of maritime infrastructure internationally. The company has one of the world's largest dredging fleets, a large stake in Smit International and owns Dockwise, a large heavylift shipping company.
Fop Smit was a Dutch naval architect, shipbuilder, and shipowner. He founded the towage and salvage company L. Smit & Co that is now part of Smit International. His shipyard had a number of "firsts" in shipbuilding and produced a number of famous vessels.
An emergency tow vessel, also called emergency towing vessel, (ETV) is a multi purpose boat used by state authorities to tow disabled vessels on high seas in order to prevent dangers to man and environment. The disabled vessel is either towed to a safe haven or kept in place against wind and current until commercial assistance by tug boats has arrived on site or until it has been repaired to the extent of being able to manoeuvre on its own. The need for ETVs as a preventive measure has arisen since the number of available commercial salvage tugs was reduced while potential dangers from individual vessels have increased. E.g. Spain has fourteen, Turkey has eleven, Germany operates eight, Norway has seven, France has five, Sweden three and the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Iceland and Finland each have one official emergency tug boat. Australia also operates emergency response vessels. The United Kingdom's four strong ETV fleet was to be disbanded in September 2011 due to budget cuts but the two vessels operating in Scottish waters received an extension of contract until the end of 2011.
A floating sheerleg is a floating water vessel with a crane built on shear legs. Unlike other types of crane vessel, it is not capable of rotating its crane independently of its hull.
Dockwise was a Netherlands-based holding company in the marine transport industry. It was acquired by Boskalis in 2013 and was merged into the Boskalis brand name in 2018.
The MV Solo was a Greenpeace ship from 1990 to 1995, originally built in 1977 as an ocean tug called the Smit Houston. Greenpeace updated the ship with a helipad as well as veterinary and laboratory facilities. In 1995 she was chartered by a company working with the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management for use as a salvage vessel. At this time the ship was renamed as the ETV Waker. On 7 September 2009, a fire starting in the engine room so seriously damaged the vessel that she was scrapped.
ST Cervia was built in 1946 as a seagoing tug for use as a fleet auxiliary by Alexandra Hall & Company Ltd of Aberdeen, Scotland. Today she is a floating Museum still undergoing restoration in Ramsgate, Kent.
On 13 January 2012, the seven-year-old Costa Cruises vessel Costa Concordia was on the first leg of a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea when she deviated from her planned route at Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, sailed closer to the island, and struck a rock formation on the sea floor. This caused the ship to list and then to partially sink, landing unevenly on an underwater ledge. Although a six-hour rescue effort brought most of the passengers ashore, 33 people died: 27 passengers, five crew, and, later, a member of the salvage team.
MV Baltic Ace was a Bahamian-flagged car carrier, that sank in the North Sea on 5 December 2012 after a collision with the Cyprus-registered container ship Corvus J. Built by Stocznia Gdynia in Poland, the ship had been in service since 2007.
BOKA Vanguard is a semisubmersible heavy-lift ship owned and operated by Dockwise B.V. Dockwise Vanguard is the largest vessel of her type ever built, and is able to carry cargoes up to 110,000 tonnes. Dockwise Vanguard was designed to move offshore oil and gas facilities, but can also carry other ships and act as an offshore dry-dock facility.
SS London Valour was a British merchant ship belonging to London & Overseas Freighters (LOF). She was built as an oil tanker in England in 1956 and converted into a bulk carrier in Italy in 1966. She was wrecked in a gale just outside the Port of Genoa in 1970, resulting in the deaths of 20 of the 58 people aboard.
Parbuckle salvage, or parbuckling, is the righting of a sunken vessel using rotational leverage. A common operation with smaller watercraft, parbuckling is also employed to right large vessels. In 1943, the USS Oklahoma was rotated nearly 180 degrees to upright after being sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia was successfully parbuckled off the west coast of Italy in September 2013, the largest salvage operation of that kind to date.
In March 2021, the Suez Canal was blocked for six days by the Ever Given, a container ship that had run aground in the canal. The 400-metre-long (1,300 ft), 224,000-ton, 20,000 TEU vessel was buffeted by strong winds on the morning of 23 March, and ended up wedged across the waterway with its bow and stern stuck on opposite canal banks, blocking all traffic until it could be freed. Egyptian authorities said that "technical or human errors" may have also been involved. The obstruction occurred south of the two-channel section of the canal, so there was no way around it for other ships. The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) engaged Boskalis through its subsidiary Smit International to manage marine salvage operations. The blockage of one of the world's busiest trade routes significantly slowed down trade between Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
L. Smit en Zoon previously known as Fop Smit, was a Dutch shipbuilding company located in Kinderdijk. Its successor is now part of Royal IHC.
MV Fremantle Highway is a car carrier owned by the Japanese tonnage provider Shoei Kisen Kaisha, while the vessel is technically managed by Wallem Shipmanagement Japanese and operated by "K"-Line. Fremantle Highway is Panamanian-flagged.
