The worth of these cars is estimated to be in the region of £100 million (approx INR 970 crore). The expensive cargo also includes about 80 pieces of JCB construction equipment such as diggers backhoes, Loadhall telescopic handlers, wheeled loading shovels, Teletruk forklifts and tracked excavators weighing a total of 50 tonnes.
Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed that its 1,200 cars and 4x4s are a part of this cargo with the ship. Apart from this, 65 MINI’s, and 1 Rolls Royce Wraith. The exact price of the cars is not known, but it is expected to be in the range of £35 million to £100 million. If the JLR models are entry level variants, then the cargo is worth of about £35 million, if they are all high end variants, then it will be worth of up to £100 million (Rs 970 crores).
If you are thinking, why is it such a big deal, as the cars are still safe inside the ship. Well, the bad news is that process of getting them out is not going to be easy. Latest report suggests that it will take weeks, and maybe months before the cars are extracted from the ship. The extraction process has been hindered due to strong winds and bad weather.
Experts have offered advice on as to how the salvage operations should be carried out. The ship could be refloated using tugs to pull it off the sand bank while fuel could be removed to lighten it. Metal floats could be attached to its sides to stabilise the ship, however, the vessel will have to be emptied of its costly cargo prior to any of these techniques being used.
The ship was on its way to the Middle East and was expected to stop at Bremerhaven in Germany. This 51,000 tonne vehicle had to be grounded as it began listing at an angle of 50 degrees which indicated that the cargo could have been piled up in the low side of the ship.
via The Telegraph
