Planning Svitzer, a Danish company, was awarded the contract to
salvage the bulk carrier. On 9 June 2007 a salvage team, led by Drew Shannon, boarded the ship to assess the condition of the hull. Salvage investigators confirmed on 11 June 2007 that the outer shell of the ship's
double hull had been breached and was taking on water on the
starboard side. It was decided that the refloating attempt would proceed despite concerns that the ship was too badly damaged to be refloated. Any attempt at moving the ship was to occur at high tide, when the ship's own buoyancy would reduce the towing force required and the chance of it breaking into two. The salvage attempt was not to involve removing any of the fuel or oil off the vessel. The plan to salvage
Pasha Bulker used anchors laid out at sea, which the ship was to use to then winch itself seawards, and three tug boats towing it with the aim of dragging the bow over a rock reef. The carrier would then be pulled seaward in a path between two rocky reefs. A
hydrographic survey was conducted to survey and map the bottom of the ocean through the surf zone using a surf ski single beam echo sounder and
GPS. This gave the salvage team more insight into the direction for refloating the ship. An emergency response team was to remain on standby should the vessel begin leaking fuel and an exclusion zone was set up around the location of the ship with marker buoys to stop all ships and surfers from entering the area. In addition on 25 June 2007 an air exclusion zone was created around the ship. Various attempts for refloating the ship were suggested. University of Sydney Honorary Associate Professor Rob Wheen suggested liquefying the sand under the ship by pumping seawater into it. This liquefaction should reduce the friction between grains of sand and in turn, friction between the ship and sand. Whether this would have been effective in this case is unknown as
Pasha Bulker was lying on rock as well as sand and the ship would have had to be pulled up and over the rocks.
First attempt Final preparations to refloat the ship began on 28 June 2007 when the ballast water, added earlier to stabilise the vessel, was pumped out to aid buoyancy. At around 5:30 p.m.
AEST the tug boats began pulling on the lines attached to the bow on the port side and the ship appeared to move for the first time. An ocean swell up to pounded the ship and caused the bow to move back and forth even when tethered to the tug boats. Soon after the attempt started to shift the ship, one of the cables connecting the ship to the tug boat
Keera snapped dashing the attempt. This resulted in the decision to make another attempt after the salvage crews could regroup. Salvage efforts on the morning of 29 June 2007 were hampered by more cables snapping, this time it was cables attached to the supertug
Pacific Responder and a sea anchor. Ballast water was reloaded to help preserve the initial gains that were made and the next attempt to move the ship was deferred to the evening of 1 July 2007 to allow salvage engineers more time to secure new cables to the tugs and between the winches and sea anchors.
Second attempt Three
salvage tugs managed to rotate
Pasha Bulker so that it was now facing deep water and was only a few degrees short of being able to clear the reef. At its new position, it was only from water deep enough to refloat the vessel and get it away. However, two separate oil slicks were detected in the vicinity of
Pasha Bulker, prompting concerns about a potential oil spill. The oil spill ship
Shirley Smith was dispatched to assess the threat of an oil leak while the salvage operations were suspended. It was later determined that the liquid was simply lubricating oil expelled from the suspended propeller and snapped rudder; it was washed into the ocean with westerly winds.
Third attempt and successful reflotation The ship was successfully towed off the reef on the third attempt at approximately 9:37 p.m. AEST on 2 July 2007. By 9:41 p.m. it was offshore. It was then held from the
Newcastle shoreline and inspected by divers for oil spills and to determine the extent of the hull damage.
Damage assessment and repairs In addition to large creases that were visible on both sides of the outer hull while the ship was beached, propeller and rudder damage became evident during the operation to remove the ship from the beach. Assessment by divers while the ship was being held offshore determined that one of the ballast tanks was flooded. Minor repairs to
Pasha Bulker were conducted in Newcastle harbour before the ship was towed by the Japanese supertug
Koyo Maru for major repairs in Japan. == Post-reflotation events ==