Re-flotation plans are in place, but will she make it?
Coastguards and salvage teams are preparing the MSC Napoli to leave Lyme Bay in one piece on the last weekend of this month.
A spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency team at Portland, Ian Jackson said: "It’s planned for July 1 but we cannot be definite, we have to make absolutely sure everything is sealed and of course account for the weather.”
This operation will be the toughest challenge yet, according to the head of SMIT’s salvage team, Captain Kees Van Essen.
He said: “the hardest bit is still to come and that’s the re-floating. We take a bit of a gamble by making probable calculations that the ship is strong enough after taking off the cargo, so that we can re-float her in one piece”
The salvage team will have just 12 hours to pump out the water at a rate of almost nine thousand tons per hour.
Captain Van Essen said: “Pumping out water is never a problem, but the time allowed for it is only between the tidal range: we must do it between the high tides. So we start pumping at the high tide, over the low tides and it has to be re-floated by the next high tide.”
Re-floatation equipment waiting for action at Portland.