Golden Ray Wreck Removal

BACKGROUND The car carrier Golden Ray, a vessel of 200 m length, was put into service in 2016. On September 8th in 2019 the vessel capsized in the St. Simons Sound, Brunswick (Georgia, USA) loaded with 4200 cars. All personnel were rescued and the fuel bunkers were pumped empty before the salvage operation commenced. The salvage company T&T Salvage was awarded the wreck removal operation considering the concept of cutting the vessel in eight sections and piecewise lifting with the multi-hull heavy lift vessel VB-10,000. The final section was successfully lifted on October 16th in 2021. SERVICES thec was contracted by Combi Lift to perform engineering services related to various hydromechanical problems ranging from early feasibility studies in March 2020 to complex multi-body lifting analyses along the entire project. Twin Barge Multi-Body Parallel Mooring and Stability Verification During the early sourcing of transport assets for shipping the wreck sections, a twin barge concept was analyzed allowing the hire of two relatively small barges but with a resulting deck space and capacity for carrying Golden Ray wreck sections. For this study, thec has modeled the twin barge configuration in a multi-body configuration. The barges are connected at deck height using steel wire slings and compression only fender elements at the bottom. The barges are ballasted in a way to allow no relative motion and constantly achieve tension loads in the connecting slings while having the fendering under compression. For this multi-body configuration, sling loads, compression loads as well as stability was assessed applying extreme wind loads while reading reserve freeboard.