Bow of Freighter Washes Back on Shore

The broken bow of the cargo ship New Carissa washed back onto the Oregon beach Wednesday after attempts over the last month to firebomb it, pump out its fuel and tow it out to sea failed to make the oil-laden menace go away.

The bow nosed onto the beach at dawn after a storm 50 miles out in the Pacific ripped the hulk free from the tug that was towing it to be sunk at sea. Just hours earlier, Coast Guard Capt. Mike Hall had lit a cigar to celebrate the departure of the wreckage and said: “Certainly the worst-case scenario is that she would come up on shore again.”

That worst case came true 60 miles north of where the ship originally scraped bottom Feb. 4. Within hours, sticky tar balls as big as a fist began showing up on the beach, apparently from the bow’s tanks, which still hold up to 130,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel.

Workers in yellow rain slickers fanned out near the 420-foot wreck with shovels to scoop up oil, and booms were set up to protect the fragile estuary around nearby Alsea Bay. At least three shorebirds and several sea lions and seals were seen coated with oil.

Salvage crews tried to check the ship’s structural integrity and to bring in another tug to pull the wreck back out to sea. But high winds, rain and 20-foot swells foiled them.