shipwreck

Recovery

If the ship was sinking and was saved you can use 'salvage'. If it had already sunk you could use 'raising'. Recovery works in either situation.

Oh, I didn't realize there were nuanced differences. Thanks!

A vocabulary point: a 'shipwreck' is either (1) an accident in which a ship sinks or breaks up, or (2) a ship that has sunk or broken up. Thus the ship in the original question, assuming the word was used correctly, was sunk and would have needed to be raised.

If it had got into trouble, e.g. in a storm, and its crew were unable to save it, it might be possible to salvage it (rescue it from destruction). The Dutch are very good at this, and there is a company called Smit Salvage which is world famous. They go to ships in trouble with special equipment, flotation barges, tug boats, etc.

intersting point. I understand the word use now, and also learnt about this company which can be useful if I need somewhere in my paper. Thanks!

Out of interest, what was the ship?

A stranded ship is also considered to be a 'shipwreck'.

On a nautical chart, this is the sign for a sunken wreck


while a stranded one is mapped such

I should get a better dictionary than Oxford, which is undoubtedly for landlubbers. I have been thinking about the Herald Of Free Enterprise, which 'sank' in Zeebrugge harbour in 1987. She turned over and became partly submerged but was never completely under the water, like (say) the Titanic. Many people owe their lives to the very brave efforts of the Belgian Navy. Britain awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal to Lieutenant-Ter-Zee 1ste Klas Guido A. Couwenbergh, and Lieutenant-Ter-Zee 1ste Klas Alfons M. A. C. Daems. Also of the Tijdelijke Vereniging Bergingswerken, Piet Lagast and Dirk van Mullem (divers). There are many of us in Britain who remember these things when we hear the name of "Brussels" mentioned. I won't say any more.

I've been a (conscripted/reserve) navigational officer in the German navy.

German sailors are the best. I read about a U-boat captain who after a long and dangerous tour of duty in the Atlantic, came back to Bremerhaven (?) and when he got on the dock shouted "How is Grofaz?" and was taken off to a camp. I am reading Teddy Suhren's book right now. Royal Navy officers in full dress uniform attended Dönitz's funeral.

Mont-Louis cargo that belonged to a French company and sank near the Port of Ostend. Belgium did the raising for nuclear emissions hazard to its people.

According to some sources, the French charter company ordered the Dutch salvage company Smit Tak International to salvage the cargo at first.
The salvage contract (signed by the French government), however, only covered the cargo. Belgium was left with costly removal of the wreck. (Belgium paid 280 million BF for this).

Sources:
Mount Louis - Maritime Chemical Accident (pdf-file)
The sinking of the Mont-Louis and nuclear safety (pdf-file)
The Law of the Sea: The European Union and Its Member States (Google books)

Do Francs even exist? Or are we dealing with an old article?

The collision happened in 1984 - the Euro was introduced in 2002.