Last November, salvors began cutting up the Golden Ray and predicted that the job would be completed by the New Year.  Now, five months later, the job is less than half-finished and the new target for completion looks more like June 2021.  

In September 2019, the car carrier Golden Ray lost stability and partially capsized as it departed the Port of Brunswick, GA, carrying about 4,200 vehicles. It was declared a constructive total loss. Plans were made to cut the 660′ long ship into eight blocks that would be each carried by barge to a scrapyard.

Originally, the goal was to salvage the ship prior to the start of hurricane season in June 2020. That slipped to September and then October, delayed both by the pandemic and by hurricanes. Ultimately, the cutting began in the beginning of November.

To cut the ship up, the salvors are using a heavy-lift catamaran VB-10,000, nicknamed the “Golden Arches.”  To make the cuts, the VB-10,000 hauls a heavy chain up through the steel hull. Each cut through the hull was supposed to take about a day.

Allowing time to hoist the blocks and position a barge that would haul the block away, if all went well, the ship was expected to be removed in about eight weeks. Things have not gone well.

VOA News reports that the first cut began November 6 and took three weeks. Lifting the ship’s bow section revealed battered cars and SUVs in neat, layered rows on the interior decks. The second cut started a month later, on Christmas Day, and was finished in a week.

Crews spent all of February attempting a third cut through the ship’s engine room, a section fortified with thicker steel. After strain on the cutting apparatus forced extensive maintenance, the salvage crew stopped with the cut only about half-finished.

They spent days moving the crane to the other end of the ship, where they began cutting a new section while rethinking plans to complete the unfinished one.

The ship’s steel has proved tougher than anticipated, slowing the process, and crews have taken pauses to perform extra inspections and maintenance, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Himes, a spokesman for the multiagency command overseeing the demolition.

“If people are wondering when it is going to be done, we’re doing it as quickly and as safely as can be done,” Himes said. “But quick takes a back seat to safety.”

The salvors have now completed the cutting of a third block toward the bow and are now returning to the partially completed cut rough the engine room.

In the meantime, local officials and residents are concerned about debris and pollutants drifting away from the salvage operation. Bumpers, tires, and other car parts falling from the ship have been found on beaches. Birds have been found coated in oil. And though most fuel has been drained from the ship’s tanks, there’s concern that an estimated 44,000 gallons (166,500 liters) remaining could come gushing out once the cutting chain severs the ship’s fuel line.

“It’s been nothing but problems out here,” said Andy Jones, a St. Simons Island resident who heads to the wreck site in his small fishing boat most days to monitor the demolition and post updates to a YouTube channel. “It’s a disappointingly slow pace.”

Responders remove another section of Golden Ray wreck