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Light rain early. Then remaining mainly cloudy. Low 72F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Light rain early. Then remaining mainly cloudy. Low 72F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.

The VB 10,000 moves back into position to resume cutting the engine section of the Golden Ray on Friday.

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The VB 10,000 moves back into position to resume cutting the engine section of the Golden Ray on Friday.

OK, so the salvage experts’ forecasted estimate of 24 hours to complete a cut through the shipwrecked Golden Ray was a bit optimistic.

Thus far, each of the three successful cuts into the hulking shipwreck in the St. Simons Sound have taken anywhere from eight days to three weeks.

To be continued is the completion of the fourth cut — an operation that stood at 30 days and counting when salvors opted last month to temporarily suspend the effort. They focused instead on cutting off the foremost section, which was completed March 15 after eight days.

This discrepancy has led many to question T&T Salvage on its choice of cutting tools. Here in the dazzlingly high-tech era of the 21st century, many wonder why the salvors are using thick, bulky anchor chain to do the cutting. After all, even back in the distant 2000s, a similar shipwreck was chopped up with comparatively streamline efficiency by means of a sleek wire cable embedded with diamond-hard teeth.

So why is the Golden Ray being dismantled with a piece of equipment primarily associated with holding a floating ship in place rather than cutting up a sunken one?

Well, the salvors are glad we asked. The answer is location, location, location, said T&T Salvage’s Matt Cooke, a naval architect. Location also plays a role in the 255-foot-tall VB 10,000 crane vessel’s role as the engine powering this behemoth chain saw.

“Anchor chain and winches constitute the primary cutting tool for separating the Golden Ray into eight sections because it allows for the required amount of flexibility and upward tension to accurately and safely cut through the shipwreck inside a tight operating footprint,” Cooke said. “Chain cutting is a salvage industry practice that has been used with success for many years. The use of the chain and tight footprint ensures that we can execute the removal plan in keeping with the overall response priorities to ensure that workers and the nearby community are safe while simultaneously safeguarding the environment and the shipping channel.”

Employing the chain to shear through the shipwreck’s steel exterior and 12 interior decks also fits the priorities of safety, environmental protection and open commerce within the adjacent shipping channel, said U.S. Coast Guardsman Michael Himes, spokesman for Unified Command.

“The cutting chain has proven to be safer and it fits the circumstances that are out there,” Himes said, referring to half-submerged shipwreck’s position in the narrow sound that separates St. Simons and Jekyll islands.

Delays notwithstanding, the Golden Isles is seeing less and less of the Golden Ray, a 656-foot car carrier that overturned Sept. 8, 2019, while headed out to sea with a cargo of 4,200 vehicles. With three gargantuan chunks taken out of the shipwreck since the first cut began last November, about 366 feet of the shipwreck remain in the sound.

Each link in the cutting chain is 18 inches long, 3 inches around and weighs 80 pounds. The plan is to make seven cuts, removing the bulk of the shipwreck in eight pieces.

Unprecedented is the word many experts use to describe the salvage operation. Still, the Golden Ray’s maritime conundrum is not without comparison. The most obvious for many is the shipwreck in late 2002 of the car carrier Tricolor near the coast of France in the English Channel.

Like the Golden Ray, the only solution to the problem presented by the Tricolor was to cut it into pieces for removal. Salvors in the operation used 330 feet of 15-inch-thick wire cable, fortified with carbide steel teeth comparable in strength to industrial cutting diamonds. The cable was powered by winches set atop fixed platforms on either side of the Tricolor, which was almost entirely submerged in more than 100 feet of water. The platforms were barges, actually — secured to the seabed on retractable pilings at each cutting location.

Each of the nine cuts into the Tricolor was completed in about 30 hours, according to news sources. Preparations and adjustments included, the first cut was completed in five days.

“You couldn’t get a better cut with a saw on wood,” said Lars Walder of SMIT Salvage Company in the Netherlands.

The last cut was completed 10 months after the Tricolor capsized, although the overall salvage operation extended through July of 2004.

Many have asked The News to ask the salvors why they can’t use a sleek wire cable saw with the bite of industrial diamonds. Where to start, Himes responded.

First and foremost, the Golden Ray shipwreck represents an environmental protection problem for which the solution is a salvage operation, he said. Its efforts are dictated by the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Comprised of the Coast Guard, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Gallagher Marine Systems, Unified Command’s role is to ensure that the salvors conduct themselves in accordance with OPA guidelines.

Among other things, the salvors started by constructing a 1-mile perimeter environmental protection barrier around the shipwreck. The barrier includes sturdy mesh netting below water to capture loose vehicles and other large debris, and floating oil retention boom on the surface. All of the cutting on the shipwreck has to take place within these confines.

The overturned shipwreck stands on its side at 135 feet high, half of that exposed above the surface. It is embedded in a sandbar beside the shipping channel to the Port of Brunswick, one of the nation’s largest car carrier ports.

The shipwreck is poised between two resort islands in some of the most environmentally sensitive marshland waters on the East Coast, Himes noted. As big as it is on the coastal skyline these days, the VB 10,000 is compact enough to operate within the environmental protection barrier and the narrow St. Simons Sound, Himes said.

The barrier also precludes practical use of a wire cable saw, which requires a shallower cutting angle. With the Tricolor capsized some 17 miles off the coast of France, the two platforms housing the winches that powered the cable wire had room to stretch and attain the angle needed, Cooke said.

“To achieve the low cutting angles at which cutting wire works effectively would have required a much larger cutting apparatus,” Cooke said. “That may have interfered with the shipping channel, an unacceptable solution.”

The cutting angle demanded of the space allotted for cutting up the Golden Ray called for anchor chain, Himes said. A more vertical, deeper angle is required, he said. As cuts have progressed and dictated, Golden Ray salvors have added an additional “wildcat” pulley to the system in order to attain sharper angles, Himes said.

“The cutting wire needs a very shallow angle,” Himes said. “It needs to maintain that tension at a very shallow angle. Different equipment would need to be used and that equipment would not have fit inside the EPB. They also did not have the narrow shipping channel that is mere meters away.”

Designed for dismantling oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, the VB 10,000 has the maneuverability required for the task. When its twin hulls straddle the shipwreck, it has four 1,000 hp engines at its command to power the chains. Each of the VB 10,000’s pontoons are 279 feet long. The vessel is more than 100 yards across, leaving about 15 to 20 feet of space between the hulls and the shipwreck.

“The VB 10,000 is more flexible in that regard in that it can fit within a tight area,” Himes said. “One of the big differences is the one-mile protection barrier that is in place to protect the sound; they did not have that (obstacle) with the Tricolor incident.

“The community should know that the majority of the efforts for this response have gone directly into protecting the sound and the shoreline.”

Safety of the salvage crews and the community also are paramount. Cable wires could react with a volatile and potentially dangerous backlash if they snap under stress, Himes said. While there have been many chain breaks during the Golden Ray cutting operations, the links fall straight into the water directly below the break with little outside danger, Himes said.

“With a wire under tension, there is a possibility that with a breakage there could be a snapback,” he said. “When we experience a failure in the cutting chain, it just falls straight down.”

Unfortunately, cutting operations have given salvors ample opportunities to study chain breaks. The first chain break occurred within 24 hours of starting the initial cut back in November. The last chain break occurred Feb. 26, after which the VB 10,000 backed away from the dense steel of the engine section.

Employing the flexibility salvors count on, the VB 10,000 instead went to the opposite end of the shipwreck to cut away a less formidable section. With that section loaded onto a barge and now removed from the sound, the VB 10,000 was repositioning itself Friday to resume cutting on the engine section.

Several more days of cutting preparations are needed before actual cutting on the engine section begins.

For all the setbacks, the salvage operation is moving forward, Himes said. The big bulky anchor chains are cutting through the VB 10,000 one piece at a time.

“This plan is working,” he said. “Is it working at the speed that people thought it would? Maybe, maybe not. But the cutting chain not only fits the safety and priority of the response, it’s also proven to be effective. We have separated (shipwreck) parts to show for the efforts. Sections have been removed and dismantled. But the most important thing is keeping the people safe, the environment safe and the shipping channel protected.”

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