PORT ANGELES — Two giant vessels that arrived in Port Angeles Harbor as one massive unit are now operating separately.
The Polar Pioneer oil drilling rig was offloaded Sunday at about 7 a.m. from the heavy lift ship MV Blue Marlin, which carried the huge mobile rig from Malaysia starting in early March.
There were no special safety concerns regarding the operation, and regular Coast Guard patrols continued Sunday, said Chief Petty Officer David Mosley, spokesman for the Coast Guard in Seattle.
“We all knew it was occurring,” Mosley said.
A 100-yard safety zone remains in place around both the Polar Pioneer and Blue Marlin, which are classified as being a single unit under the safety zone protection as long as they are moored near each other, he said.
The safety zone expands to 500 yards if either vessel is underway.
The Blue Marlin will no longer have the safety zone enforced once one of the two vessels departs the harbor, though the zone will stay in place for the oil rig, Mosley said.
The 400-foot-long, 355-foot-tall rig owned by Transocean Ltd. is one of two vessels Royal Dutch Shell plans to use for exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northern shore.
The second rig, the drill ship Noble Discoverer, will pass through the Strait of Juan de Fuca on its way to Seattle sometime in May and will not stop in Port Angeles.
A group of Foss tugboats led by the 360-foot icebreaker tug Aiviq helped to separate the Blue Marlin and the Polar Pioneer Sunday morning and towed the rig a short distance to an anchorage site west of the Blue Marlin.
The Blue Marlin is a partially submersible heavy lift ship, which loads and unloads its cargo by submerging its large open deck below the water’s surface, allowing its cargo to float on or off.
At least seven tugs assisted in the operation, from the 8,000 horsepower 155-foot enhanced tractor tugs Lindsey Foss and Garth Foss, to the 3,300 horsepower, 95-foot tug Daniel Foss.
The tug fleet offered a combined 28,000 horsepower to the offloading process, according to vessel profiles from the Foss website at www.Foss.com.
Several of the tugs remained with the Polar Pioneer in the harbor to assist with control of the massive floating platform.
Efforts to reach Shell representatives Sunday were unsuccessful.
The rig will remain in the harbor for about one more week while it is prepared to be towed to Seattle for prepared for arctic drilling.
Information about how long the Blue Marlin will remain in the harbor here or where it will sail to next was not available Sunday.
The ship and rig arrived in Port Angeles Harbor on April 17, greeted by a stream of curious onlookers and a contingent of protesters who departed after a few hours.
The ship was intercepted by the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza — a recycled Russian firefighting ship with a crew of 35 — while traversing the Pacific Ocean.
On April 6, six Greenpeace activists boarded the Polar Pioneer about 750 miles northwest of Hawaii and remained on board for about six days, often holding protest signs saying “The People vs. Shell.”
Protesters oppose Arctic offshore drilling and have maintained that oil companies have not demonstrated they can clean up a major spill in the remote arctic region.
Rough seas forced the activists off the rig and back to the Esperanza, and U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage, Alaska, issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the group from repeating the protest.
The ruling bars Greenpeace and its activists from boarding, barricading or interfering with the movement of the Polar Pioneer, the Blue Marlin or the Noble Discoverer.
The ruling remains in effect until at least Tuesday, when a hearing on the matter is scheduled.
The Esperanza followed the Blue Marlin to the Strait of Juan de Fuca but did not enter Port Angeles Harbor and instead docked in Victoria, B.C.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel contributed to this report.
