Five-day wait to salvage stricken ship

4.00 pm

High seas forecast for the next five days will delay refloating the stranded log carrier Jody F Millennium until next Wednesday, but salvors say the ship can survive that long marooned off Gisborne's Waikanae beach.

The 156m-long South Korean ship ran aground last Wednesday. It subsequently ruptured one of its fuel tanks, leaking oil into the sea.

United Salvage director Ian Hoskison said this afternoon that salvors may have to wait for calmer conditions, expected on Wednesday or Thursday, before attempting another refloat.

An attempt to salvage the ship on Wednesday night was abandoned because of a high swell.

The swells are currently up to 4m high and are expected to be 2 - 3.5m for the entire weekend.

But Mr Hoskison said unless weather conditions were significantly worse than yesterday, there should be no danger to the structure of the vessel.

"You can see some flexing in the vessel with the wave action from the tops of the cranes moving. But you also see that in a seaway … so its nothing untoward and nothing to be concerned about.

"There is no sign of any deterioration in the ship."

A second tug from Melbourne, the 65-tonne Keera, will arrive at 7 am Sunday to join the tug Pacific Chieftan in securing the Jody F.

A steel cable from the ship's bow to Pacific Chieftain snapped in heavy seas yesterday and the log carrier swung back to her original position beam-on to the sea. The ship has not yet been reconnected to a tug.

Pumping of oil within the ship resumed today and by tomorrow the 199 tonnes of oil stowed on Jody F will be in tanks in the sturdiest part of the ship.

Heating coils at the bottom of the tanks are thinning the oil, making it easier to pump into tanks above the water line.

Weather permitting, two helicopters will tomorrow continue to remove logs - one at a time - from the stranded vessel.

The plan was to remove 1000 tonnes of the total 20,000 tonnes of logs.

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