Work to refloat Chinese dry cargo ship under way in Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky

The crew of the Sakhalin marine rescue tug-boat Atlas on Tuesday began an operation to refloat the Chinese dry-cargo boat Century Luck which ran aground, reported the Sakhalin marine rescue coordination centre.

The Chinese dry-cargo boat (port of registry: Hongkong) was swept aground on October 18. Under the impact of a gale and high waves the vessel unmoored and ran aground.

According to the information from the dry-cargo ship captain, no damage of the hull was discovered, and there is no threat either of the oil products seeping out of the ship or to the lives of the 16 crewmen.

At first, the captain of the Chinese vessel turned down the assistance of the Russian rescuers in the hope that the crew would be able to heave off the ship by themselves. However, all the attempts proved futile.