Day 3

At approximately 8:30 a.m. in the morning, the SV Redeemer and the Kashega barge arrived.The harbor is still full of ice, but with some maneuvering, they were able to clear a path.

At the Ocean Clipper, and Dustin and Paul from ECO were trying to clean out the main cabin but the cutters were cutting below them and the cabin was filled with sparks and smoke, so the ECO crew were removed from the vessel during cutting.

Instead, ECO crew and I moved the port wheelhouse section further from the boat. They undid the rigging and moved it to a new vantage point to move the section. There were pieces that were getting hung up and we had to rerig again to prevent that from occurring. We moved the piece successfully and then took the come along and repositioned it to pull the port forward compartment section off the vessel. Once it was ready, Paul did the honors of operating the come along.

Dan Magone and I talked about progress and he was going to talk with his cutters to make sure that we can get in to clean up so that debris does not scatter from the vessel when a piece is removed. He was pleased that we were helping him make progress. He informed us that it is likely that all pieces will be removed via the highline, but it’s not clear how that will work on the last piece. He also informed us that he will likely have to use explosives on the ice on the starboard stern quarter and in the engine compartment and fish holds.

The sea ice is melting off the starboard side and the water is lapping against the forward part of the hull. We mucked out the forward compartment. The area was full of debris. With the vessel listed such a large amount, the debris had formed a large mass in the deepest corner. We used shovels to muck out the mixture. We probably added another 15 bags of debris to the pile.

Once we finished mucking, the crew cut the starboard forward compartment side. Freeing the section caused a lot of problems.

The port stern fuel tank was cut free and was completely empty.

Dan Magone spent a lot of time devising a plan for the aft wheelhouse section. It is a double hull that he had not planned on. He sent several workers into the fish hold to chip the foam off of the steel. Extremely laborious.

Dan stopped by the bunkhouse in the evening for a few minutes. We talked about the large amount of debris coming off the vessel and he said that he would throw it on his barge. He is pleased with how things are going. He’s beginning to think that it will take two weeks to complete.