And then there was one.

Guided by tugs, a dry-docked barge carrying the penultimate section of the wreck of the Golden Ray ship slid out of St. Simons Strait before sunrise Sunday morning.

Departing for the East River at Brunswick, the barge and its colossal cargo left behind the last vestige of the 656-foot-long car transporter that spilled in the waters between St. Simons and Jekyll Islands there. is over two years old. At 80 feet in length and 4,909 metric tons, Section 4 of the wreck now looks small compared to the nearby VB 10,000 crane vessel that will soon accompany it.

The sun rose on Sunday morning over a view of the VB 10,000 and Section 4 half submerged, a short distance from each other inside the Environmental Barrier (EPB ) one mile from the perimeter that surrounds the recovery site. The VB 10,000 “will undergo a period of routine maintenance,” said US Coast Guard Michael Himes, spokesperson for the United Command. As it has done seven times before, the double-hulled crane ship will soon straddle Section 4, hoist it out of the water, and load it onto a barge deck for transport out of the sound.

And it will be the last spot of the massive shipwreck on the seascape between these two resort islands on the Georgian coast.

Meanwhile, with her cargo of 3,300 metric tons stretching over 130 feet above the bridge, the barge carrying Section 5 arrived at a temporary berth at Mayor’s Point Terminal on the East River in Brunswick a few hours later on Sunday. The barge and cargo are moored next to the city’s Mary Ross Waterfront Park. Like the other three central sections of the wreck, Section 5 is slated for further dismantling at a nearby site at 615 Bay St. on the East River.

The smaller pieces of wreckage will then be transported to Modern American Recycling Services (MARS) facilities in Gibson, Louisiana. As they suffered less damage during the capsizing, the four outer sections of the wreckage were all transported whole directly to MARS.

Two weeks of behind-the-scenes work ended with a flurry of activity on the water over the weekend. After completing a two-week project to build a sturdier cradle on its deck, the barge received Section 5 around noon on Saturday.

Guided by tugs Kurt Crosby, Crosby Star and Caitlin, the barge slid under the hulls of the VB 10,000, which had held the 3,300-ton Section 5 suspended in its huge arches for three weeks.

The mighty crane ship then deposited this midsection of the wreckage on the deck and in its specially designed cradle shortly before 1 p.m.

“They’re lowering the section,” Himes said at the time. “They carefully align it with the cradle system.”

The damaged port side of the section rested on the barge’s deck with the starboard side of the hull climbing 135 feet above its head. Section 5 is 74 feet long. Like the eight sections of the wreck, its width is 135 feet and 113 feet from keel to deck. (All seven sections were lifted and transported as they are in the sound – port side down, starboard side up.)

The workers then boarded the barge and secured the massive section to the deck of the barge by welding it into the cradle. The newly constructed cradle consists of large steel beams protruding from both sides of the bridge.

The Golden Ray overturned to port in a sandbar next to the shipping channel on September 8, 2019, as it was heading out to sea with a cargo of 4,161 vehicles.

Salvors began in November 2020 the operation of using the VB 10,000 to cut the half-submerged wreckage into eight pieces to remove it from the sound.

Powered by the powerful winch, pulley and cable systems of the VB 10,000, the VB 10,000 pulled a massive cutting chain through the seventh and final cut into the ship’s half-submerged wreck on September 4.

Then engineers and rescue masters confirmed their concerns almost a week later that Section 5 suffered more damage than expected. It was at this point that the VB 10,000 completely pulled the section out of the water to give the experts a first glimpse of the damage to the wreck’s port hull. Much of the port outer hull is missing in this part of the wreckage. Himes said earlier this week that the missing part of the hull likely lies on the seabed where the Golden Ray struck the sandbar.

Sections 5 and 4 included the middle of the Golden Ray, which suffered most of the impact when the vessel capsized. Salvors predicted significant damage to Section 5, but this could not be confirmed as the middle sections of the wreckage were sunk into the sandy bottom the entire time.

Once the severity of the damage was confirmed, rescue experts had to design and build a “sturdier” cradle on the barge’s deck to safely secure the section of the wreckage for transport, Himes explained.

Each transport barge previously had a specially designed cradle on its deck, consisting mostly of several large steel posts to which the wreck section was securely welded by its keel. Due to the additional damage to Section 5, engineers added several more of these steel structures to secure the section on the opposite side as well.

Design and construction of this reinforced cradle system began about two weeks ago.

It remains to be seen whether the damage in Section 4 is significant enough to warrant similar modifications to the final lifting and carrying operation of the rescue effort.