When the Baltic Ace hit another container ship in December of 2012 and promptly capsized and sunk it was carrying 1,400 cars and over 100,000 gallons of oil. For most of the past four years, all that has just been sitting at the bottom of the North Sea inside the already considerable wreckage of the ship itself. Not an easy mess to clean up. 

But an important one! Since the wreck threatened to leak thousands of gallons of oil and sat dead center in the middle of a well-traveled shipping lane. So Rijkswaterstaat, the part of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, commissioned a salvage team to drag it up. Piece by piece. 

The process was far from simple. First, crews drilled into the wreck to heat the then-solid oil and drain it, before slicing the ship itself into eight seperate pieces with a wire and removing each one seperately. The process took just under four years, and is documented ina fascinating summary video by SMIT Salvage, which helped with the removal: 

View full post on Youtube

The removal process was completed in late 2015, leaving virtually nothing left on the sea bed and generating thousands of tons of recyclable salvage. That it was at all possible is a marvel of modern engineering. Too bad not all shipwrecks get that kind of treatment. 

Source:SMIT Salvage