By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
As hopes continue to fade for the missing sailors believed to be trapped in the sunken naval ship, Cheonan, military officials are preparing to raise the wreckage to investigate the cause of Friday's mysterious explosion.
However, pulling up the 1,200-ton Cheonan, split in half by the force of the explosion, appears to be a difficult task, and the past South Korean experience with these types of jobs doesn't inspire much confidence.
It took the Navy 53 days to retrieve the 130-ton Chamsuri patrol boat after it was sunk in an exchange of fire with the North Koreans in 2002.
The Cheonan's exact weight is not being revealed, with authorities citing confidentiality issues regarding the patrol vessel's weaponry and fuel capacity, but it's obvious that the military doesn't have the right tools to get the job done
According to military officials, the Navy's existing equipment is only capable of lifting ships below the 130-ton weight class out of water, and so it would take crane vessels from private companies, including shipbuilders and marine transport operators, to pull the Cheonan out.
"It's hard to tell whether a crane vessel owned by a certain company will be able to raise the Cheonan or not. We don't have the exact weight of the ship, and since the ship was split into two, there could be various discussions about the best way to pull each part up," said a shipbuilding engineer, who has a wealth of experience in designing military vessels.
"But it might take floating cranes capable of lifting 3,000-ton vessels, or at least 2,000-ton ones if the shredded wreckage will be pulled up separately, as ships are about three times heavier under water compared to when they are afloat," he said.
Currently, the country has four floating cranes above the 3,000-ton class owned by shipbuilders. Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering has two 3,000-ton cranes, while Samsung Heavy Industries has one 3,600-ton crane and another 3,000-ton one.
A Daewoo official said the company has yet to be contacted by the military over the use of its cranes, but it is willing to deploy them.
However, both of Daewoo's massive cranes are kept at its shipyard in Geoje Island, at the southeastern tip of the peninsula, and it would take at least a week for them to reach the site of the disaster in the West Sea, as the tug boats pulling the cranes can only move at a speed of four to five knots.
"It's hard to tell whether the cranes would be capable of pulling up the wreckage. We yet to know the exact weight of each part and identify the parts of the wreckage that could be molded and attached to the cranes," a Daewoo spokesman said.
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