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Saturday, 2 February 2008, 12:57 GMT

Ferry sheds thousands of biscuits

Packets of McVitie's biscuits on the shore Thousands of packets of chocolate biscuits have washed up on the Lancashire shore from a stricken ferry.

The McVitie's biscuits were being carried on lorries aboard the Riverdance, which ran aground off north shore near Blackpool on Thursday night.

Four salvage team members carried out a damage assessment after being winched down on to the listing deck of the ship from an RAF helicopter.

The operation to refloat her is not expected to start until next week.

Hugh Shaw, of the Maritime Salvage Agency, said: "It is a case of getting on board and checking what movements there have been and what damage has been caused, if any.

Riverdance

"It will take time to gather the information, put a plan in place and get suitable tugs into the area to hopefully refloat the vessel.

"We are not looking at starting the salvage operation over the weekend."

A spokesman for Seatruck Ferries said two trucks of salvage equipment were expected to arrive from Rotterdam on Saturday morning.

He said the first stage of the salvage would be to remove fuel from the ship despite the fuel tanks being intact.

Twenty-three people were flown to safety after the ferry was hit by a freak wave which caused it to list on Thursday night.

The truck ferry was travelling from Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland to Heysham, Lancashire, when she ran into difficulty just before 2000 GMT.

Some of the ferry's cargo of 50 lorries broke chains holding them down and as the load shifted the vessel began to list at 60 degrees in conditions described as the roughest for a decade.

Helicopters from the RAF, Royal Navy and Irish Coastguard battled mountainous seas and 60mph (96km/h) winds to rescue those on board.

Initially, four passengers and 10 of the crew were winched ashore, while the remaining nine crew tried to refloat the roll-on roll-off ferry.

But they too had to be pulled to safety.




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Related to this story:
Problems persist after heavy snow (02 Feb 08 |  UK )
Motorists rescued from snowdrifts (02 Feb 08 |  England )
Bad weather hampers ferry salvage (01 Feb 08 |  Lancashire )
Ferry runs aground off Blackpool (01 Feb 08 |  Lancashire )
High winds push trawler aground (01 Feb 08 |  Highlands and Islands )
Air rescue for ferry travellers (31 Jan 08 |  Merseyside )

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Seatruck Ferries
Riverdance's location
Maritime & Coastguard Agency
RAF
Royal Navy
Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
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