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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