Delta Life Nr. 6 September 2016

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DELTARES, September 2016 19
Deltares supplies knowledge that
allows for the safe completion, within
budget, of the increasingly demand-
ing clearance jobs. Engineers are cur-
rently working on the removal of the
Dong Phien Dhu Silver, which sank in
shallow waters in front of an estuary
in Myanmar. The sedimentation and
strength properties of the sediment
around the wreck are being studied
prior to the dredging of a pit into
which the ship can be lowered.
The Baltic Ace, with a cargo of cars on board,
sank on 5 December 2012 off the Dutch coast
in the busy shipping channel leading to Rot-
terdam. There is a clay layer in the seabed,
making it impossible to suck sand away so
that the ship can be dropped into the bed. The
structure of the Baltic Ace was severely com-
promised and so the vessel was ultimately
sawn into pieces and removed in sections. The
clearance operation took two summers.
Not every ship has to be salvaged. Some
parts of a vessel can be left on the bed and
covered with sand. The MS Smart is one
example. The nearby beach of Richards Bay
regularly needs extra sand and so it was
possible to cover the location of the wreck
of the MS Smart in a single operation.
The appeal for fish also involves a drawback: the
fish attract a lot of sharks. When a wreck is near a
beach, this is a problem for local authorities and
bathers. The wreck of the MS Smart near Richards
Bay, South Africa, has been 'beheaded' due to the
shark risk and the rest has been taken to deeper
waters.
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