A large container ship that grounded just meters from a private home west of Trondheim late last week was successully towed back to sea on Tuesday. Homeowner Johan Helberg was relieved when the ship was finally removed from his yard.
“It was okay to have greeted it, but now it’s ‘thank you and goodbye,'” Helberg told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK), which broke the story about the grounding that sparked interest all over the world. Helberg narrowly avoided having the ship crash into his bedroom, after the lone crew member on navigation duty admitted to falling asleep at his post.
Emergency and salvage crews had hoped the vessel could be towed away from Byneset’s coastline at high tide, but that didn’t work. Then they lightened its load by removing several of its containers, and that did work: “It went much better than expected,” Ole T Bjørnevik told NRK. He’s the leader of the towboat company charged with removing the Cyprus-registered ship NCL Salten that sails for North Sea Container Line.
The vessel then sailed to its original destination at Orkanger, on the southern side of the Trondheim Fjord. Officials from the Norwegian maritime directorate and the vessel’s classification society were waiting there, too, to inspect the vessel and monitor crew conditions on board. The grounding also set off landslides in the area and NCL officials said they hoped evacuated residents could soon return home.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
