The Deccan Chronicle 23.09.2010
Karwar municipality to retrieve sunken shipSept. 22: Looking for ships wrecked at sea is the stuff movie plots are made of. But the Karwar municipality is doing it for real. It has set off in search of Cheri Maju, a ship that sank three decades ago off the Karwar coast, to bring it to the shore and preserve it for posterity.
A huge earthmover has been brought to the Ravindranath Tagore beach to remove the ship, drawing hordes of curious onlookers. The ship’s propeller has already been retrieved, much to their excitement.
“The earthmover was used when the tide was low and we managed to get the propeller of the ship out. When we went deeper we saw the bottom of the ship, but the work had to be stopped as by then we had high tide,” Karwar municipal commissioner A.D. Revankar, who was at the spot, told Deccan Chronicle, explaining that the municipality had got to know about the 1980 shipwreck from a report in a vernacular newspaper and later learnt more about it from fishermen.
The officials learnt that the ship Cheri Maju had arrived in Karwar in 1980 carrying paint and asphalt and later sank near the coast. It is now lodged some five meters away from the shore, having been pushed towards it by waves and winds over the years. “Some recollect that when the ship sank, the local people took the tins of paints that floated away from it to use in their houses,” the commissioner added.
