CT Systems and Tricolor (2004).

Collision with Kariba

On Saturday, 14 December 2002, at 02:15, the car carrier TRICOLOR and the container vessel Kariba collided.
The TRICOLOR was traveling from Zeebrugge to Southampton. The Kariba originated from Antwerp and was en route to Le Havre. The collision occurred when both vessels were about to enter into the north-south shipping route through the English Channel.

The Kariba struck the TRICOLOR on the port side. The car carrier quickly took on water, capsized and sunk within 30 minutes. The crew from the Kariba rescued three of the TRICOLOR's crew members. The remaining 21 crew members found refuge on board the Belgian URS tug Boxer.

Two days later, on 16 December, the unloaded German cargo vessel Nicola struck the wreck of the TRICOLOR. Tugs pulled the cargo ship from the wreck on the same day.
On Wednesday, 1 January 2003, the TRICOLOR was struck again. This time, the Turkish tanker Vicky, which was carrying 77,000 tons of gas oil, hit the wreck .

Salvage operation

In May 2004 the salvage of the cut up wreck started again, using the Taklift 4 of Smit Salvage from Rotterdam.
C.T.Systems, together with Thales Navigation(Maggellan), installed the CT Systems VIKING ANCHORING software to handle the navigational aspects of the operation.

The positioning consisted of the Aquarius 2 LRK DGPS, using a French reference station providing an accuracy of a few centimeters. Installed sensors enabled us to locate the exact position of the grab. Beforehand , using a side scan sonar, all the debris had been located and all the relevant X,Y,Z information had been converted to a VIKING chart, to enable the Taklift 4 to do a systematic search and recovery off all the remaining debris.

'Taklift 4', working at the wreck site

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