Making a Million Out of a Sunken Ship
The problem of the Gut Heil, a German tanker that lay on her side at the bottom of the Mississippi
Bv Robert G. Skerrett
���The Gut Heil rejuvenated; ready to float out of the muddy Mississippi and into the Gulf for refitting
��FIVE years ago, a double collision sent the German tanker Gut Heil to the bottom of the Mississippi a half mile below Ba- ton Rouge, as she was out- ward bound with 3800 tons of oil. As a ship, she was worth about $300,000; and $125,000 was spent after- wards in an unsuccessful attempt to refloat her. To- day, thanks to
extremely clever salvage engineering, the craft is afloat and valued at not less than $1,000,000, mainly because of the scarcity of ocean-going bottoms.
As the vessel was not held in hand, so to speak, when wreckers first tried to raise her, she turned over while partly afloat, filled with water, and sank on her side. In that position the task of raising her appeared hopeless, and so she was alDandoned by her owners. A few months ago interest was revived in her, and a well-known New York salvage com- pany was asked to make another effort to recover her. After prelimi- nary study the work was undertaken as it was believed that the diflficulties could be circumvented and the vessel successfully refloated.
As she lay submerged, the Gut Heil represented a dead weight of 6,000 tons, 4,000 tons of the burden being in the form of mud that had displaced her cargo of oil. How was it pos- sible to get rid of that load of accumu- lated silt and then make the ship right herself? Past experience made it clear that she would have to be controlled perfectly at every moment. If she acquired too much momen-
��tum at the start the impulse might carry her far enough over on the other side to allow the water to rush into her and to
cause her to founder again. To get the mud out of her, the salvors de- vised a siphon operated by compressed air. It did its work well. Her four- teen oil tanks were fairly well cleaned out, so that it was pos- sible for the divers to ex- amine her condition. They reported that her main longitudinal bulkhead, reaching nearly her whole length, was not tight where it met the metal deck above. Since this had to be tight it became necessary to seal the long divisional wall of steel. This was done under water. Divers made a union between the bulkhead and the deck with reinforced concrete. They also closed the two wounds in the tanker's side with the same material.
The vessel was blown out by corn-
���Here the master wrecker watched gages and controlled the raising of the Gut HeiJ
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