April 2019, the Resolve Marine was contracted by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) to assess crude oil leaking out of the sunken M/V COIMBRA . The M/V COIMBRA is a British Tanker that was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat at the start of World War II. The Wreck, broken into multiple pieces, sits approximately 30 miles southeast of Shinnecock N.Y in 180 feet of water. After Resolve provided the subsea survey and assessment, the USCG contracted Resolve for subsea oil removal and recovery.
Resolve’s research and development team created a specialty “Hot Tap” system to efficiently remove oil in the ship’s tanks at all depths and any temperature. The operation was carried out using Commercial Divers, Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and Dynamically Positioned (DP) vessels. After discovering fuel discharge seeping from loose rivets, operations commenced patching the active leak-sites and eliminating environmental contamination. In under three months, Resolve’s patented “Hot Tap” system extracted over 476,000 gallons of oil in the unforgiving environment under harsh conditions. Resolve Marine and 1-Call Alaska continue to utilize the same proprietary “hot tap” system globally for emergency response lightering during salvage and oil spill responses.