DIVING NEWS
Thorfinn captain downplays naval rescue
Salvor personnel assisting Thorfinn. (Picture: US Navy)
Long-established Truk Lagoon diving liveaboard Thorfinn was reported by the US Navy to have run aground off the coast of Chuuk in Micronesia during a storm on 1 December. It stated that the USNS Salvor, which had been conducting salvage training in Chuuk’s Weno Harbour, responded to the vessel’s distress calls and came to the rescue.
After ensuring the safety of Thorfinn’s crew, divers from the US Navy’s Mobile Diving & Salvage Unit One worked with Salvor’s crew to free Thorfinn and guide her to a safe anchorage.
“It was a great example of what we can accomplish when we work together as a team,” said Captain Robert Williams, commodore of the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command Far East. “Our civilian mariners and Navy divers were ready to respond when needed and worked seamlessly together to safely and professionally execute the rescue.”
However, in response to Divernet’s enquiries Thorfinn’s long-time captain Lance Higgs took a less dramatic view of the incident.
“We were never aground, but during a period of boiler maintenance our anchors dragged slightly, bringing us into close contact of a reef shelf within Truk Lagoon,” he said.
“We only required and obtained services of a USN tug to pull the ship back to normal anchorages, where anchors were reset. No damages to reef or ship, and all continues as before without any problems.”
6 December 2019
The 58m Thorfinn was built in 1954 in Norway as an ice-breaking whaler, though she has been much modified in the intervening 65 years. She accommodates up to 20 divers exploring Truk’s WW2 shipwrecks.
Captain Higgs says that the liveaboard supplies Truk Lagoon’s “widest diving and sightseeing experiences”, after 33 years of refining her operations in the wreck-diving hotspot.
Thorfinn did ground under Captain Higgs in 2007, according to reports at the time. On that occasion a gash in the engine-room was said to have caused the liveaboard to take on water off Chuuk’s principal island, Pohnpei.
