Salute to Shanghai Salvage divers

By Sang-so Nam

It was a sunny autumn day in 1962 in Ulsan along the southeast coast. In a teahouse sat four men from four different countries; marine salvage Captain Albert from London; a marine engineer representing the U.S. Rubber Company; Capt. Takagi, a Japanese man with H.H. Salvage of Busan; and myself holding a briefcase containing hydrographic charts and a portable radio.

We had been there drinking tea for more than five hours, practically doing nothing but sometimes listening to shortwave weather broadcasts. Albert and the U.S. Rubber engineer spoke British and American English, Takagi spoke Japanese, and I, the project coordinator, happened to be able to communicate with all of them.

Two teahouse waitresses became curious about us speaking “funny” languages and fooling around on such a beautiful day, and asked us why. “We are pearl collectors. The sea is too rough to dive today,” I said. “Wow!” they echoed.

The largest floating crane in Korea with six divers, and crew members are doing nothing or playing cards on a barge deck anchored off Ulsan shore, swaying along with the waves. We are marine salvage experts installing an off-shore buoy for crude oil unloading tankers some 5 km from the onshore tank farm of the first Korean refinery under construction.

The size of the Ulsan underwater project cannot be compared with the Sewol floating effort by Shanghai Salvage but both off-shore projects had the same natural enemies; high waves and swells, and high speed tidal currents. That is what Shanghai seamen have been struggling with over the past three years. They too may have visited tea houses in Mokpo port to kill time. When the sea is rough or tidal currents flow fast, they cannot do anything in the water as the salvage barges, though anchored, move up and down on waves constantly influenced by changes in the atmospheric pressure and different locations of the moon.

The computer graphic broadcast on TV showed that sliding pins in between the suspending wires and rollers seemed so easy. Under 45 meters of water it requires the hands of human divers. When the floating barge moves up one meter, the suspended cables from the deck under the sea rise and descend the same length. It’s like a threading needle with shaking hands, only the iron pins are 50 kg heavy. The actions required under the sea on that particular job by the Shanghai divers were quite similar to our Ulsan divers who had to get pins through the eyes of anchors and its chain.

Deep diving has more hazards and greater risks than open water diving. Nitrogen narcosis or the “rapture of the deep” starts with feelings of euphoria and leads to numbness and memory impairment similar to alcohol intoxication. And decompression sickness can happen if a diver ascends too fast. The late navy UDT Warrant Officer Han Ju-ho of the sunken Cheonan frigate incident was a victim of decompression sickness.

I salute the divers and the crew members of Shanghai Salvage for their unending patience and high seamanship displayed in successfully salvaging the ferry Sewol.

The writer attended navigation school and served as a quartermaster on PF- 61, ROKN during the Korean War. His email address is sangsonam@gmail.com