PORT ANGELES — Two giant heavy-lift ships are anchored in Port Angeles Harbor to begin loading operations.
The slow-speed action will last for more than a week.
The 738-foot-long semi-submersible MV Blue Marlin is expected to begin being loaded with the oil drilling ship Noble Discoverer today and leave Tuesday.
The MV Dockwise Vanguard, a 902-foot semi-submersible, is expected to begin being loaded with the oil drilling platform Polar Pioneer on Tuesday and depart from Port Angeles on Dec. 21.
“It’s going to be a busy harbor for the next few days,” said Ken O’Hollaren, executive director for the Port of Port Angeles, on Thursday.
Port Angeles Harbor was packed full of ships Thursday, as the Dockwise Vanguard joined her smaller sister ship, the Blue Marlin, along with a small fleet of tugboats and support vessels, two tankers, two U.S. Navy submarine escort vessels and other ship traffic.
“This is monumental. There has been nothing like this,” said Mike Nimmo, marine terminal manager for the Port of Port Angeles.
In the distant past, a Navy fleet visited the port, but Nimmo,who has worked for the port for 17 years, said he could not remember a recent time when there were as many ships or as much action going on in the harbor.
O’Hollaren said that unlike the Polar Pioneer’s first visit to Port Angeles in April and May, the port is not as deeply involved in the activity.
However, the exposure the port is getting during the complicated and very visible ship operations can only be good as it demonstrates the deep-water port’s capabilities for the international shipping industry, he said.
Really slow
The Blue Marlin is scheduled to submerge today, and the Noble Discoverer, which was in the Port of Everett on Thursday and is expected in Port Angeles today, will be maneuvered over the deck to begin lifting it out of the water, said Robb Erickson, vice president of sales for the U.S. division of Dockwise Shipping of the Netherlands, which owns both heavy-lift ships.
It takes one day to submerge the ship and three days to lift and secure the cargo, Erickson said.
“These things go really slow,” he said, noting that operations could continue normally as long as winds remain less than 15 knots.
Erickson said the company is working with the Port of Port Angeles and U.S. Coast Guard to ensure safe operations.
The Noble Discoverer was built in 1976 and is owned by Noble Corp. of Baar, Switzerland, and port officials have said it is headed next to the West Pacific.
When submerged, only the bow of the Blue Marlin and two floats in back are visible, Erickson said.
When the ship submerged in New York Harbor and in New Orleans, the 9-1-1 operators in those cities received thousands of calls from concerned onlookers who are unaware of what the ship does, he said.
The Polar Pioneer spent the summer drilling for oil in the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska, and returned to Port Angeles in late October to resupply and offload equipment from its summer operations.
It will be heading back to the North Sea off the European continent, where it operated for 30 years, port officials have said.
The 355-foot-tall oil platform is owned by Transocean Ltd. of Zug, Switzerland, and was specifically built to operate in extreme conditions.
The Polar Pioneer was leased to Royal Dutch Shell, the parent company of Shell Oil.
The Dockwise Vanguard is the largest ship of its type in the world and can lift more than 120,000 tons of cargo.
The Blue Marlin is best known for its role in transporting the USS Cole back to the U.S. for repairs after a bombing in October 2000 at a port in Yemen left the ship badly damaged.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
