The sunken yacht off the coast of Formentera will not be refloated

The yacht ‘Irmao’, which suffered a serious fire for reasons that are still unknown last Saturday afternoon, will remain submerged off the coast of sa Punta de sa Pedrera, due to the great depth of the area where it sank, which makes it technically impossible for divers to refloat it, as José Ramón Crespí, head of Maritime Rescue in the Balearic Islands, explained yesterday. Thus, the 27-metre-long luxury vessel will become “just another wreck” once the specialists have determined that there are no remains of diesel oil that could contaminate the area, which is of great environmental value and forms part of the Ses Salines de Ibiza and Formentera Natural Park.

In order to reach this conclusion, Salvamento Marítimo carried out on Sunday a first inspection from the air with the aircraft ‘Sasemar 305’, based in Alicante, and from the water with the vessel ‘Salvamar Acrux‘. In that first reconnaissance, “a small diesel oil spill was detected drifting towards the northwest”, Crespí said yesterday. This spill “was dispersed in a mechanical way, beating the stain with the engines” of the ship of Salvamento Maritimo, described the head of the institution in the Balearic Islands.

During yesterday morning, the ‘Sasemar 305’ returned to the area and found that there was no longer any trace of spill, so “we understand that if no more comes out it is because it was burned during the fire and the little that was left was what we saw on Sunday,” Crespí argued.

Regarding the possibility of refloat the vesselwhich was towed by the same ‘Salvamar Acrux’ from the coast of Cavall d’en Borrás in an attempt to move it away from the busy area of ses Illetes but ended up sinking in front of sa Punta de sa Pedrera, the Salvamento Marítimo spokesman explained that the yacht “is at some 58 meters deepit is not safe for divers to work there.” “It’s nothing more than a technical decision, the refloat is not feasible“, Crespí concluded.

Although the plan was to deposit the yacht in an area with an accessible depth, the virulent fire prevented it and it ended up submerging completely earlier than desirable.

Response from the Consell

For his part, from the Consell de Formentera, its president and councilor of Litoral, Llorenç Córdobayesterday requested the “immediate and urgent” withdrawal of the sunken pleasure boat. Consell sources said yesterday that from Capitanía Marítima they have been reminded that the ultimate responsible for a possible refloating is the owner, who is urged to do so “immediately and urgently to avoid causing more problems”. Cordoba lamented, in statements to Europa Press, that for years the coastline of Formentera has suffered a “serious problem”great pressure“The island institution has been calling for more resources in this regard for a long time. After the incident, the insular institution displaced the vessels of cleaning of the coastlinea service contracted by the Balearic Government, to inspect the site of the sinking. These boats will continue monitoring to detect a possible spill and to clean any debris that may appear, recalled yesterday from the Consell.