On December 5th, 2012, the car carrier ship, the Baltic Ace, tragically sank with over 1,400 cars on board. The ship sank as a result of a collision with another container ship near the main entrance to the Rotterdam port. Eventually, Mammoet Salvage was brought in to take the task of removing not only the ship itself but every car aboard as they all represented a serious hazard to the environment and sea port trade. The entire process as to how the salvage company went about raising the ship and the cars is truly an impressive feat of engineering. The Baltic Ace sank with 540,000 liters of oil on board and every inch had to be removed. Despite the fact that the ship was only insured for about $55 million, it took $73 million more to spend on the entire operation.
