A ship that made world headlines for running aground in Norway a stone’s throw from a house should be dragged loose within days, the head of the company managing the salvage operation said Monday.
Ole Bjornevik, managing director of BOA Offshore, said the company would first unload the ship’s cargo, then remove the 135-metre (443-foot) vessel.
“We estimate that there are approximately 1,500 tonnes of pressure on the fore ship. Once we’ve unloaded that weight of containers, we can pull it off,” Bjornevik told AFP.
“We plan to do so on Wednesday,” he added.
The NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just metres from a wooden cabin around dawn on Thursday.
A Ukrainian sailor in his 30s was on watch at the time and said he had fallen asleep, according to Norwegian police, who have charged him with “negligent navigation”.
The seaman also said none of the cargo ship’s collision alarms had worked, prosecutor Kjetil Bruland Sorensen told news agency NTB.
The investigation will also look into whether the rules on working hours and rest periods were adhered to on ship, according to police.
The occupant of the house, Johan Helberg, also slept through the incident, and only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbour called him on the phone.
None of the 16 crew members were injured.
