Korean Shipwreck Salvage Operation Lags While Car Parts Wash Up on Coast of Brunswick, Georgia

Image by Author

Salvage operations have been ongoing since September 2019, when the Golden Ray, a Korean freighter, capsized off the coast of Brunswick, Georgia. The ship, which is the size of a 70-story building, carried 4,200 cars, and pieces of those are now showing up along the coast.

Despite salvage crews thinking that could be finished by January, four months later, the third of seven cuts are just now complete. Now car parts are being found from St Simons to Cumberland island; a pristine nature preserve off the coast of St Marys Island.

With the Ever Given ship in the Suez Canal still in the news, the Golden Ray continues to become a lesson in how not to solve a shipwreck. For almost nineteen months, salvage crews have been trying to figure out how to remove this eyesore from the coat of Georgia. It has been spoiling the waters around and the view from Brunswick, St Simons, and Jekyll island, while the noise and water pollution contaminate the area.

Image by Author

Despite an Environmental Protection Barrier having been constructed to contain pollutants and debris, debris and oil slicks are showing up all along the coast. After months of deliberation, they finally began cutting the ship up into eight sections for removal. The first section involved a lot of trial and error, but the second section went pretty smoothly. The next section, however, has been nothing but problems.

This section was finally loaded onto the barge, Julie B, and towed into Brunswick, Georgia, for preparation to be shipped to Louisiana for the final salvage operation. The second section, Section 8, was removed from the Golden Ray in about a week. Crews have been struggling with the next section for three months, hampered by broken chains and lousy weather. Nearly half of the shipwreck still remains in the water.

Image by Author

Off the coast of Brunswick, Georgia, St Simons and Jekyll Island rely primarily on tourist dollars to keep solvent. In 2020, that tourist trade was not only hampered by a global pandemic but by the sight of a capsized Korean freighter sitting just off the coast. The view from the fishing pier on St Simons usually includes a beautiful sunset behind the Sydney Lanier Bridge in the distance. Now that view is marred by the backside of a sunken ship.

In September, a year and a half ago, the Golden Ray left the Port of Brunswick, Georgia, loaded down with 4,200 Hyundais and Kia vehicles. It barely made it out of the port and into the channel between St Simons and Jekyll island when disaster struck. Under almost ideal weather conditions, the ship dismissed its tugboat and attempted a 20-degree starboard turn.

Image by Author

The ship went into a normal lean during the turn, but instead of righting itself, the lean turned into a full-fledged capsize crashing into the bay. All crew members were rescued without a problem, although for some, trapped inside, it took 35 hours and a hole cut into the hull to get them out.

The 4,200 vehicles aboard didn't fare as well. They were declared a total loss almost from the beginning as salvage crews tried to figure out how to right the ship so it could be towed away. But they soon realized the only way to get it out was in pieces. They first cut away the massive propeller and rudder, hauling them to an artificial reef southeast of St Simons and discarded. They then began the arduous task of cutting the ship up into eight sections for loading onto waiting barges.

The first of those cuts began over a year after the ship capsized.

Follow me to see more local Brunswick, Georgia articles like this.

...

Follow