Episode 154 – A Project Story:  The Largest Wreck Removal in US History

The podcast for project managers by project managers. Matt Cooke, a lead project manager with Texas-based T&T Salvage LLC, describes the bold plan to remove the Golden Ray wreck from the Georgia coastline. Hear about the many obstacles and challenges the team had to overcome in this extraordinary wreck removal project.

Table of Contents

01:19 … The Golden Ray Wreck03:30 … Meet Matt05:37 … T&T Salvage and the Golden Ray Project06:25 … Project Collaborations and Stakeholders08:38 … The Plan to Remove the Wreck10:13 … The Size of the Project11:19 … Project Timeline12:28 … The Cutting of the Wreck14:22 … Dealing With Obstacles14:41 … Safety15:35 … Ocean Tides16:36 … Weather and Environmental Protection17:27 … COVID19:19 … Risk Management Strategy22:02 … Keeping the Team Motivated23:36 … Forward Planning24:52 … Final Piece Removed26:23 … Final Destination27:28 … Reflecting on the Project29:20 … Find Out More31:11 … Closing

Matt Cooke: I think my biggest job as the project manager was to keep looking ahead and trying to think about what’s next, what’s the next challenge we’re going to face, what’s the next task on our to-do list and trying to stay ahead of that because that’s where I needed to kind of keep ahead of our teams and try to make sure that then we were thinking a few steps down the road so that we weren’t coming up to those roadblocks unprepared. 

WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  This is the podcast about project management.  We like to bring you stories about projects and the leadership lessons and the wise advice that you can hear from industry experts from all around the world who have carried out successful projects.

And one of those stories is going to be brought to us today by our guest, Matt Cooke.  Matt is an integral part of the T&T Salvage Team, he provides engineering, project management, planning, cost analysis, and operational support.  He has been actively involved in large-scale salvage and emergency response operations in the U.S. and abroad.  He was on leadership of the T&T Salvage successful removal of the Golden Ray wreck.  And he was one of the two lead project managers on this project.  And Bill’s going to tell us a little bit about this fascinating project.

The Golden Ray Wreck

BILL YATES:  Yes.  The Golden Ray wreck, let’s talk about that.  That’s the largest wreck removal operation in United States history.  On September 8, 2019, the Golden Ray capsized within the Port of Brunswick’s harbor shortly after getting underway.  The ship departed the dock in Brunswick shortly after midnight and had traveled only 23 minutes when she started to list.  The serious listing caused the port to close immediately.  The good news is all 23 crewmen onboard survived, including the three engineers who were in the ship’s engine room at the time of the incident.

Now, the vessel, the Golden Ray, was carrying 4,200 brand new Kia and Hyundai cars that had been manufactured in Mexico.

WENDY GROUNDS:  And they didn’t survive.

BILL YATES:  No, they did not survive.  If you want a water-damaged Kia, yeah.  The incident was mentioned as related to a sudden loss of stability.  So if you’re wondering, you know, how did this occur, it was a sudden loss of stability, possibly due to cargo stowage and incorrect water ballasting.  It was an NTSB, National Transportation Safety Board, report in August of 2021 that determined the cause of sinking to be a combination of factors, things like incorrect figures had been entered in the ship’s stability calculation program, which was used to determine the proper levels for ballast tanks. And there was no procedure to verify those calculations. 

This left the ship unstable.  And as she made a sharp turn 23 minutes into her voyage, when exiting the channel, that’s when trouble came up.  To complicate things, when the ship heeled to port,