MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rescue of gold cargo on South Atlantic seabed begins this week

The powerful Sailor-C ready for operations

The rescue and recovery of 9.6 tons of gold and silver on the sea bed of the South Atlantic is scheduled to begin next week with the arrival of Sailor-C, a Vanuatu flagged vessel specifically designed for this kind of operations.

Sailor-C left Punta Arenas in the extreme south of Chile on Friday and is sailing to Santa Cruz from where it will begin operations to lift the approximately 22 million US dollars in precious metals at a depth of 80 metres, 40 kilometres off the Argentine Patagonian coast, north of the east access of the Magellan strait.

The gold and silver are in the haul of the Chilean flagged former trawler converted into an armoured transport, “Polar Mist” which went down in the middle of a storm last January 18 under mysterious circumstances.

C-Sailor, 70 metres long and equipped with powerful engines and winches and diving support equipment was contracted by insurers Lloyds and the Dutch company Mammoet, which specializes in deep sea operations in adverse weather conditions as those that can be expected off windy Patagonia.

The vessel is expected to pick up the diving team and experts in Santa Cruz before leaving for where she located the Polar Mist a few weeks ago.

The Polar Mist cargo belonged to the mining companies Cerro Vanguardia and Minera Tritton which extract gold in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz.

The final destination of the 9.6 tons of gold and silver was Switzerland, but before that the cargo was taken by sea to Punta Arenas through the Magellan strait by the ill fated Polar Mist; from Punta Arenas by air to Santiago and then on to Switzerland.