Status: 08/20/2023 2:31 p.m
According to the Waterways and Shipping Office and the owner, preparations are ongoing to salvage the cutter. The damaged ship is no longer a danger.
After the sinking of a fishing cutter off Büsum (Dithmarschen district), the salvage is being further prepared. It will take some time before work can start, said a spokeswoman for the Elbe-North Sea Waterways and Shipping Office (WSA) on Sunday. The owner of the cutter has confirmed to NDR Schleswig-Holstein that his insurance company is preparing the salvage.
The emergency command of the federal and state governments had already given the all-clear on Saturday: hardly any marine diesel is leaking from the sunken cutter. This was determined by experts on Saturday using a special aircraft to monitor marine pollution. In addition, the cutter is off the shipping routes. So there is currently no longer any danger from him. The CCME therefore ended its mission on Saturday and handed it over to the WSA.
This asked the owner of the cutter “Wotan” to salvage the ship. The shrimp fisherman suspects that his 82-ton fishing boat has to be lifted with a floating crane. After that, the 18-meter-long ship is to be towed to a port on a kind of pontoon and then probably scrapped.
In total, the ship had about 2,800 liters of fuel and about 200 liters of hydraulic oil on board. By early Friday evening, the CCME had laid out oil barriers and absorbers and sucked up the sunken cutter’s diesel oil from the water surface.
Sailors were surprised in their sleep
At 4.20 a.m. on Friday morning, the cutter caught fire – the two fishermen, including the ship owner, were about 13 kilometers west of Büsum at the time and were surprised by the flames while they were sleeping. Cutter captain Norbert Temming noticed the fire in the engine room immediately after waking up. When trying to put out the fire, the combustion gases caused him problems. The boat was mostly made of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GRP). The cause of the fire is still unclear.
VIDEO: Fishing cutter capsizes off Büsum (1 min)
Rescue cruiser saves the sailors
Radio communications also stopped working properly during the fire. “I could understand the other side, but no one understood me anymore. And I couldn’t try out a lot and try another channel because the fire was just getting closer and closer,” says Temming. The men then fled to safety on a life raft. They weren’t hurt. The two sailors ended up adrift on the liferaft in the water four kilometers from the ship. There the sea rescue cruiser “Theodor Storm” took them on board.
Rescuers take care of the men
Fabian Burrmann from the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked Persons (DGzRS) was one of the rescue workers on board the “Theodor Storm”: “We saw from afar that the cutter was on fire – ablaze,” reports Burrmann. The crew reportedly ignited a hand flare that could be seen briefly. She would then have found the two men two nautical miles west of the cutter. Fortunately, nothing happened to the two, says Burrmann. “They got into the boat with dry feet.”
VIDEO: Burning fishing cutter: How a sea rescuer experienced the operation (2 min)
Firefighting fails
Then they tried to fight the flames for seven hours. A team from the Cuxhaven fire brigade went on board for this, but then had to leave the cutter again. The 18 meter long “Wotan” sank. Task forces on board the DGzRS sea rescue cruiser “Hermann Marwede” noticed, according to the CCME, that the cutter was listing. Within minutes she became unstable and capsized over the starboard side. Because of the leaking fuel, salvaging the cutter was “secondary for the time being,” said Benedikt Spangardt from the Havariekommando.
Several ships and an airplane in action
In addition to the sea rescue cruisers, the ships “Mellum” and the “Neustadt” of the Federal Police were initially deployed on Friday. The “Trische”, a ship belonging to the state of Schleswig-Holstein with equipment for combating pollution accidents on board, later joined the scene. The DO 228 sensor aircraft also monitored the site in order to be able to determine whether and where pollutants were escaping, the emergency command announced.
Further information
2023-08-20 15:32:11
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