By Alison Bate

The Ship That Will Not Die has finally been laid to rest, after nearly a decade stuck in the surf zone of a remote Oregon beach.

Titan Salvage used the jack-up barges Karlissa A and Karlissa B to remove the last visible remains of the New Carissa this week.

The stern of the New Carissa in 1999

The Florida-based company signed a $16.5 million US contract with Oregon Department of State Lands last year and salvage work on the rusting remains of the stern began in May.

Wendy Wiles, from Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality, told the 2008 Pacific States/B.C. Oil Spill Task Force meeting in Victoria, B.C. recently that very little oil was released during the salvage project.

A series of failed attempts to remove the wreck followed after the ship ran aground during a storm on Feb. 4, 1999, leaking about 70,000 gallons of oil and killing around 2,300 seabirds.

The lawsuits also followed but in 2006, Oregon State Land Board approved a $22 million US settlement with the owners, and used most of the money to sign the current salvage contract with Titan.

Published in 2008, revised June 2019

See also:
* My story after landing on the wreck of the New Carissa in 1999
* New Carissa 20 years later (published in Feb. 2019)