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Mud, Muscle, and Miracles

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Excerpt: Mud, Muscle, and Miracles
SSR: Editing

CHAPTER ONE

The Early Days

Marine salvage, as old as seagoing, is a unique part of the maritime world. Around it has grown a specialized technology, a tough-minded international industry, a broadly based naval community, and a unique body of law. Naval salvage is similar in technology to its commercial counterpart, but it is undertaken for far different reasons than is the business of saving property for financial gain. The Navy has a salvage organization and conducts salvage operations because they advance the objectives of the Navy and the nation.

Retrieval of things lost in or threatened by the sea serves many purposes: the return of ships to service, the recovery of valuable property, the collection of data for analysis of failures, and the removal of threats to the environment. Returning ships to service and recovering cargoes takes on special significance in wartime, when conservation of resources is of utmost importance.

In peacetime, salvage operations not only recover ships and material but also contribute to the Navy's mission of showing the flag, both at home and abroad. Domestically, the operations are excellent opportunities to show the public the Navy at work solving real problems and contributing to the public good. Internationally, and consistent with the Navy's function as an instrument of public policy, salvage operations can be undertaken for political gain. Politically beneficial salvage operations include removal of a stranded naval vessel from the coast of another country, removal of a wreck in a foreign harbor, clearance of an international waterway, or operations on a foreign-flag merchant ship when no other salvors are available.

Naval salvage operations fall into four general categories: (1) afloat and stranding salvage, (2) harbor clearance, (3) submarine salvage, and (4) deep-ocean operations. The problems and techniques of each category are unique, but all combine seamanship and engineering-complementary disciplines that must be balanced in the proportions required by the particular task.