Diamond Knot at risk for oil spill

[renoun]

The DK came up in NOAA's nationwide analysis of wrecks with potential to have sudden large fuel oil releases as they continue to deteriorate.

NOAA Report Examines Oil Pollution Threat From Shipwrecks

NOAA on Monday presented the U.S. Coast Guard with a new report on the pollution threat posed by the thousands of shipwrecks scattered across the U.S. seafloor.

The report, which is part of NOAA’s Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project, identifies the location and nature of potential sources of oil pollution from sunken vessels, which could help oil response planning efforts and in the investigation of reported mystery spills.

In total, NOAA identified 36 “worst case” shipwrecks that could pose a oil pollution threat to the U.S.’s coastal marine resources. Of those, NOAA says, there are 17 that are recommended for further assessment and potential removal of both fuel oil and oil cargo.

NOAA:Potentially Polluting Wrecks in U.S. Waters
Direct link to Diamond Knot report

[RoxnDox]

A very interesting (and well-written) report. Provides a lot of information about the wreck too, which was very nice. It (the report) did not recommend that they do anything to the ship herself, other than watch over it (along with the dive community!) for changes or any oil releases, and include the possibility of a leak in the local contingency plans for such things.

As for the report itself - kudos to the authors for making it concise, understandable, and using a minimum of techno-jargon! A good result, in a day when too many scientific reports are so geeked-out that they're unintelligible to anyone outside the field...

Jim

[CaptnJack]

It would help their credibility if they could get the location corrected plotted. Its about 7 miles west of their dot. Near the top of the T in the label "approximate". Would also help if they had any construction plans and could describe where the 6500 barrels of diesel would have been stored, since some parts of the wreck are now completely flattened and if the tanks where in that section they are no more. They are correct in describing it in "one peice" - sort of.

[RoxnDox]

It would help their credibility if they could get the location corrected plotted. Its about 7 miles west of their dot. Near the top of the T in the label "approximate". Would also help if they had any construction plans and could describe where the 6500 barrels of diesel would have been stored, since some parts of the wreck are now completely flattened and if the tanks where in that section they are no more. They are correct in describing it in "one peice" - sort of.

Yes, that's a fairly significant location error and should've been caught in reviews. However, given the purpose of the report, it really wouldn't make a huge amount of difference. The currents would sweep any possible oil releases around roughly the same areas, so the end results would still call for the same actions. They did note that there were no plans in their database, and it's possible that they tried to get them from the shipyard and none were available. The report's budget may not have had the resources needed for them to dig further in that regard, especially given the info that the vessel was almost home from Alaska and was probably carrying much less than a full load of fuel by then. I don't see it as a major deficiency, myself. Not near as much as the location...

Jim

[CaptnJack]

She was a "liberty" ship, there were hundreds of the type built for the war so there are ample plans around. I doubt any of them are labeled by ship name however. Although each one was probably slightly different, I imagine the tanks were in roughly the same location(s). The bow and stern are intact, the midships is completely flattened from the salvage. I rather doubt they cut through oil tanks to salvage the salmon however. So its not inconceivable that there are intact tanks in the stern. Diesel doesn't turn into jelly like bunker C so its possible there's some still in there.

[Rockfish]

I don't think that the Diamond Knot was a "Liberty ship".

http://www.liberty-ship.com/html/topics/hulldeck.html

This shows that the Liberty ship is 441' long and the Diamond Knot is 326'. Also the super structure on a Liberty ship is located amidships and the super structure on the Diamond Knot is located aft.

http://www.advanceddivermagazine.com/ar ... dknot.html

I know that there used to be a sister ship of the Diamond Knot moored in Ballard close to the Fremont bridge and her name was the Rose Knot. I'm not sure if she is still there.

Mike

[CaptnJack]

I don't think that the Diamond Knot was a "Liberty ship".

http://www.liberty-ship.com/html/topics/hulldeck.html

This shows that the Liberty ship is 441' long and the Diamond Knot is 326'. Also the super structure on a Liberty ship is located amidships and the super structure on the Diamond Knot is located aft.

http://www.advanceddivermagazine.com/ar ... dknot.html

I know that there used to be a sister ship of the Diamond Knot moored in Ballard close to the Fremont bridge and her name was the Rose Knot. I'm not sure if she is still there.

Mike

No you are right, "liberty" was the wrong term. There was a series of "Knot's" though, all built at roughly the same time. I don't recall seeing a Rose Knot when we lived in Ballard (up until 3 years ago).

[ljjames]

Rose Knot left Ballard in the mid-late 90's before being repainted white renamed the Restoration and working as a mercy ship in Middle East/EU. Yardarm knot was also there for a bit during early 90's. I think as a processor. They were C-MAVI ships if memory serves me.

http://www.diverlaura.com/public/Diamondknot.html

[kdupreez]

According to United States Maritime Commission web site, it looks like the Rose and Diamond knots were C1-M type ships and in specific the AV1 versions - 338.5ft long.

http://www.usmm.org/c1ships.html