Navy Struggles to Move Trawler
The Navy suffered a setback Wednesday in its plan to move a Japanese fishing vessel sunk by a U.S. submarine to shallow water.
Officials said they had ended a weeklong effort to drill underneath the Ehime Maru to install rigging to lift the 830-ton trawler and would try a new method.
The fisheries training ship went down after it was struck by the Greeneville on Feb. 9. Twenty-six people on the boat were rescued. The bodies of nine men and boys are believed to be aboard the ship.
The Navy plans to move the ship from its resting place 2,000 feet below the surface to 115-foot-deep waters a mile offshore so divers can search for the bodies.
It plans to slide 50-foot-long plates underneath the Ehime Maru and use cables to attach them to a steel bar. A recovery ship would then reel in the plates to raise the trawler.
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