“NAN HAI I” is an ancient sunken ship which was serendipitous beyond the Shangchuan island in Guangdong province in Aug 1987. The wreck was lying in the sea bed for about 800 year and was buried by sludge, however the hull maintains integrity and tens of thousands of exquisite historical relic remains in the wreck. The water depth was 30 m but not clear, it brings some difficulties for underwater archeology.

In order to keep the precious archaeological relics of “NAN HAI I”, the idea of integral wreck removal had been planned for many year, however, because of the difficulty of the execute solution and lack of large crane barge, this plan was delayed for 20 years. Until the building of the 4000t crane barge “HUA TIAN LONG”, the integral wreck removal plan comes to be available.

In order to implement the idea of integral wreck removal, Guangzhou Salvage put forward the plan of using caisson, after 3 times of nationwide experts’ discuss, finally the plan was optimized and proved.

On March 2007, the wreck removal of “NAN HAI I” began. The front-line staff overcome all kinds of difficulties and encouraged continuous fighting spirit, the difficulty of sinking caisson was solved in July and the difficulty of installing bottom girder was solved in November. On 22nd Dec, the caisson containing “NAN HAI I” was lifted out of water by “HUA TIAN LONG” and loaded onto the deck of the barge “ZHONG REN 1601”. On 28th Dec, the caisson was moved from the barge to the Maritime Silk Road museum by 56 hrs of pulling with the help of air bags.

The successful integral wreck removal of “NAN HAI I” sufficiently shows the abundant power and initiative spirit of China Salvage and Rescue. The Research of integral wreck removal and protection technology gained the first prize of “China Navigation Tech Award” in 2009, and 4 utility model patent and 4 invention patent had been authorized by state intellectual property Bureau.