McMahon Services were contracted by Tourism SA to prepare the vessel for scuttling. This was an enormous task, as basically a fully operational war ship had to be stripped to make it a virtual skeleton. All environmental hazards required total removal.
We had to work on ways to make the vessel do what it was never designed to do.....sink. The vessel was littered with specially cut holes to let water in and air out, when it was scuttled. The crews main task was to widen bulkheads and clearing pathways through the vessel so as divers had enough room to maneuver through safe thoroughfares.
Some statistics on what materials were removed:
- 20,000 kilometres of communication and electrical cable
- 280 tonnes of steel bulkheads and equipment
- 156 tonnes of lead ballast ingots
- 32 tonnes of liquid fuel / oil
- 42 tonnes of rubbish in the form of timber, plastic etc
- Approximately 90,000 square metres had to be cleaned by hand to remove contaminants prior to scuttling
The project took approximately eight months to complete with a steady crew of 16 personnel.