Air Lift Bags

Salvage of the Jean Ricciardi

Client: Insurance company
Contractor: Prodive Monaco
Location: Sete, France 
Water depth:  18m 

The Jean Ricciardi had suffered a total power loss in the middle of the night and this left her without lights and adrift, she continued to drift until she ran aground under the cliffs near the harbour entrance of Sete.  A merchant vessel who caught sight of the Jean Ricciardi contacted authorities and took 2 crew members aboard who had been in the Jean Ricciardi’s liferaft at the time of the grounding. A lifeboat was dispatched and freed the fishing vessel from the rocks and the Jean Ricciardi was taken under tow bound for Sete.  The vessel’s hull had been severely damaged during the grounding allowing significant water ingress to the vessel and she started to heel.   Without power to operate the pumps the fishing vessel flooded and then sank by the stern just 800 meters from the harbour entrance.

SEAFLEX INVOLVEMENT

Due to the water depth and the close proximity to the harbour entrance the Local harbour authorities insisted that the wreck be remove as soon as possible. The vessel’s insurance company agreed and engaged a salvage company to remove the wreck however they failed in their attempts. PRODIVE were then approached to carry out the removal and contacted SEAFLEX to supply the necessary air lift bags. 

PRODIVE required 240t of lift bags, 12 x 20t ALB (Air Lift Bags) for despatch as soon as possible. The bags were packed and despatched from stock the same day from SEAFLEX head quarters on the Isle of Wight and arrived on site two days later.  The salvage was completed by PRODIVE within a week of the call to SEAFLEX and the Jean Ricciardi has now been safely removed from the water to be broken up for scrap.

For more information or quotation contact: Graham Brading - gsb@seaflex.co.uk

 

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