Updated at 11 a.m., Friday, August 31, 2001

Ehime Maru lift operation hits snag

By Mike Gordon and Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writers

The Rockwater 2 lifted the stern of the Ehime Maru so rigging cables could be put in place. Associated Press

The effort to lift the Ehime Maru off the sea floor hit a snag last night when one of two key rigging cables was discovered to be out of place.

The cables will be used to pull two large metal plates under the ship so it can be lifted off the ocean floor.

The two cables, known as messenger wires, must be placed precisely to ensure that the Ehime Maru can be safely lifted from its 2,000-foot location, U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor spokesman Jon Yoshishige said last night.

The cables were put in place Wednesday night while the stern of the Ehime Maru was raised nearly 24 feet off the bottom, a maneuver that had the potential to buckle the hull of the 830-ton ship.

The ship will have to briefly lifted again to move the rigging cables, but bad weather prevented that today. Winds of up to 40 knots and 10-foot seas put the operation on hold, Yoshishige said.

"Safety is paramount, so we opted to wait for more favorable weather conditions," he said.

The lift, part of a backup plan adopted last week when drilling under the hull failed, lasted nearly eight hours before the ship was placed back on the sea bed about 1 a.m. yesterday, Yoshishige said. But when the sediment settled, a remotely operated vehicle discovered the forward wire was snagged around the middle of the ship.

Yoshishige said the cable needed to be under the ship's pilot house. The second wire, he said, was in place under the ship's engine room.

Salvage experts on the Rockwater 2 attempted to move the forward wire to its correct position without moving the Ehime Maru, but realized they would have to lift the ship's stern again.

The Rockwater 2 is a civilian vessel contracted to move the Ehime Maru to shallow water.

Should the lift fail or somehow damage the ship, the Navy does not have another plan.

Yoshishige said that there was no indication that the first stern lift caused any damage to the ship.

Once the cables are in place, heavy-duty lifting slings must still be pulled under the hull.

That could occur in a few days, but there is no exact timetable.

The wreck lies in 2,000 feet of water about nine miles south of Diamond Head. It sank Feb. 9 after being rammed by the submarine USS Greeneville during a surfacing drill.

Nine people went down with the Ehime Maru and their remains may still be inside the hull.

The Navy wants to recover their bodies, but must first move the ship to water shallow enough for divers to reach it. Such a move has never been done before.

Should crews succeed in adjusting the forward cable, the two will be connected to the lifting plates by remotely operated vehicles.

Cranes on Rockwater 2 will pull two lifting plates under the wreck.

Afterward, Rockwater 2 will return to Honolulu Harbor for additional rigging.

Although the full extent of damage to the Ehime Maru is not known, the collision with the Greeneville severely damaged the hull of the ship, which sits upright on the sea bed.

The stern lift needed to be done cautiously.