OSLO (Reuters) – Emergency crews scrambled on Tuesday to prevent a Dutch cargo ship from sinking into the North Sea and causing an oil spill off the Norwegian coast after the crew had to be evacuated in stormy weather.
Footage released by the Norwegian Rescue Center for Rescue Services showed that some of the twelve crew members jumped into the sea late Monday from the poorly listed Eemslift Hendrika before being rescued by helicopter. Others were hoisted directly from the deck.
All were brought to safety, but the ship still drifted ashore. It is currently about 74 km off the Norwegian coast.
The wind is expected to gradually move the vessel to a course parallel to the shore, which will give the salvage operation more time, Hans Petter Mortensholm of the Norwegian Coastal Administration told Reuters.
“Our calculations now point to an opportunity to act, which lasts until Wednesday just after noon,” he said. “The risk of pollution is our biggest concern.”
The coastal administration said the Hendrika had about 350 tons of heavy oil and 50 tons of diesel in its tanks.
Smit Salvage, a subsidiary of the Dutch marine services company Boskalis, told Reuters they had contracted to try to save the ship and mobilized a team to send to Norway later on Tuesday.
Safety allows Smit to try to get his own crew aboard the Hendrika and connect the vessel to a so-called anchor handling tug, a powerful ship built to move craft for the oil industry.
“It’s the goal to get her on a tow line and to a quieter place,” said Martijn Schuttevaer, spokesman for Smit Salvage.
A Norwegian Coast Guard vessel is on standby in the area and could also be used for towing purposes, the Coastal Administration said.
The Eemslift Hendrika, built in 2015 and registered in the Netherlands, is a yacht transport vessel carrying smaller boats on its deck, according to the Monaco-based Starclass Yacht Transport, which markets the services of the ship.
One of the smaller vessels moored to the deck fell into the storm, the Coastal Administration said.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Editing by David Goodman, Gareth Jones and David Evans)