Refloated ship to be examined

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The 62,000-tonne MSC Napoli is now floating at anchor over a mile off Sidmouth on the east Devon World Heritage Coast.

The team of 20 underwater experts are due to begin a days-long inspection of the vessel to assess her structural integrity.

Temporary repairs were carried out to cracks in the sides of the hull while her cargo of over 2,300 containers was removed in a months-long operation. But a crack on the bottom of the hull will now be assessed by the experts.

The Napoli was being stabilised before the diving teams begin their work, and their findings will help towards a decision for the final disposal of the vessel.

The vessel's refloating was the culmination of months of work by salvage experts. The operation followed the removal of the last of the containers from the Napoli's water filled holds on May 24. A battery of 37 huge pumps began pumping 58,000 tonnes of water out of the vessel at low water - 7am. At 9.08am the vessel was floating once again, and by 10.20am the giant salvage tug Maersk Advancer had towed the Napoli 500 metres into deeper water to lay at anchor.

Anti-pollution vessels dispersed a small amount of oil - understood to be around two tonnes- that leaked from the vessel during the operation.

Maritime and Coastguard Agency head of counter pollution response Toby Stone said the refloating "has been a success story without a doubt". He said the alternative to grounding her off Devon earlier this year "was a ship on the bottom of the sea polluting over a period of time and polluting thousands of miles of coastline".

The Napoli was deliberately grounded on a seabed shelf on January 20 amid fears she could sink after her hull cracked in a Channel storm off Cornwall two days earlier. The Napoli was en route from Antwerp to South Africa when her 26 crew abandoned ship and were helicoptered to safety.

Around 1,900 seabirds along the coast were affected after 200 tonnes of oil leaked from the vessel soon after grounding. A further 4,000 tonnes of fuel oil was pumped from the Napoli's tanks.