Two attempts to tow stranded oil tanker M T Pratibha Cauvery, by Malviya 21 on Friday proved futile and authorities were banking on deballasting 8,000 tonnes of water from the ship using seven submersible pumps before they began their fourth attempt during high tide on Saturday morning.
Mercantile Marine Department officials said only Malviya 21, the 133 tonne bollard pull that sailed in from Visakhapatnam, was used during both attempts to tug the vessel on Friday, instead of the highly anticipated emergency tow vessel, SCI Ratna, which was anchored outside Chennai Port. MMD officials refused to comment on why SCI Ratna was not being used for salvage operations.
Meanwhile, officials confirmed that the services of tug vessel Malviya 21 would be prolonged further by two days. The vessel was available for the salvaging operations till Friday.
The focus has now turned to deballast operations. Ballast water is the water carried by ships to ensure stability. Currently, the salvagers planned to deballast 8,000 tonnes of water using the ballast pumps. Interestingly, these ballast pumps were not working and salvagers were using three submersible pumps. However, the quantum of water being released was less and hence, four more pumps were being hired for the purpose. 8,000 tonnes of water was expected to be drained out by night so that the tugging operation could be carried out before 5 am.
Officials claimed that once the water was drained, the ship would come up. Since the top sand would be loose, it could be tugged easily during high tide. Meanwhile, sources said that the ship was likely to be anchored inside Chennai Port instead of being sent to L&T’s Kattupulli shipyard.
Meanwhile, Indian Navy officer in-charge for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, Commodore Amar K Mahadevan ruled out Navy’s involvement in the salvage operations as the Navy did not have tugs.