Gavin Morgan

17 September 2007

SHETLAND Coastguard yesterday (Sunday) managed to salvage a massive floating dock that lost its tow in severe weather conditions early on Saturday.

The northern isles emergency towing vessel Anglian Sovereign picked up the dock’s broken tow and hauled it towards Lerwick harbour.

The tow arrived at the south mouth of Lerwick Harbour at around 3pm yesterday afternoon.

Shetland Coastguard was alerted to the incident after the Russian tug Stakhanovets with 22 people on board lost her tow around 50 miles east of Sumburgh Head.

The 177 metre floating dock belongs to the large Ukrainian dock building specialist Pallada, based in Kherson, on the Black Sea.

A spokesman for Shetland Coastguard said that the plan had been to hand the tow back to the Russians, but they wanted to use a normal rope to re-attach the dock and this was considered dangerous.

They will now have to get a wire rope before they can get the dock back.

As there was no indication last night as to how long this would take, the floating dock may well be secured in Lerwick Harbour, since the Anglian Sovereign needs to be relieved to be available for other duties in the waters around Shetland and Orkney.