would be out of luck. she would be grounded. they ve got the flotilla of ships and brain power of dc here and on the gulf coast. this will be one more tool to help use to battle the oil spill. one way to put it, reynolds, a controller, command center telling everybody where to go. there s oil here, get the skimmer boats over here and get the oil up. one more thing. i talked about a blimp. but a-whale, we ve been talking about the skimmer ship billed as the world s largest oil skimming vessel. are they ever going to get this thing out there and working? it seems like they ve been testing and testing and testing. looks like it might be next week. you re talking about this being a whale literally. it s a freak of a boat. take a look at that thing. it s over the length of 3 1/2 football fields long, the size of a ten-story building in height in the water line to the bridge tower. it is a tremendous ship. and what they re doing is they ve been doing a series of tests. last week they had
job. is there ever a moment you leave his presence and think, oh, my god, what have i taken on? i was just close to retirement, and this is something that i never imagined as i was coming to the end of my coast guard career? i think everybody has those moments from time to time, but the opportunity to ameliorate the impact and help the people of the gulf coast, which i have experience with hurricane katrina, and it s an opportunity, and it s large and complex but one i willingly take. this massive oil skimming vessel was halted yesterday. we came up with the news that the test results were inconclusive. can we have faith in this? this spill presents challenges for that type of technology, and we like to see a proof of concept to see if it can work, but the time and area what it takes for a large ship to maneuver is an issue.
controversial remarks. that hasn t gone away. based on what we ve seen in recent days including this new stage in the infight in the republican party over michael steele, doesn t show any sign of going away any time soon either. i don t think it s going away any time soon either. we ll continue to follow it, josh. thanks. breaking news right now on this 77th day of the gulf oil disaster. we have just learned that tests of the effectiveness of the whale oil skimmer in the gulf of mexico are inconclusive. a spokesperson for the company that owns the huge converted cargo ship actually announced this today. the cargo ship is the world s largest oil skimming vessel. now, if approved the a whale would join an oil skimming flotilla of 550 ships that were working yesterday on the gulf. this morning new cost figures from bp who now say they ve spent more than $3.1 billion responding to the disaster. meanwhile the feds have put another 1100 square miles of the
what is important is nobody was hurt here. jay barberie, thanks. a new weapon enlisted in a battle against the oil. an oil-drinking whale. it is a boat. it is the largest oil skimming vessel in the world, dubbed the whale. at 3 1/2 football fields long and ten stories high, it is set to suck up 21 million gallons of oiled water a day. charles hadlock is in venice, louisiana, for us. good afternoon to you. reporter: the administration and bp and the coast guard have been criticized for turning down offers of help from foreign vessels. this is hard to miss, though. ten stories high, three and a half football fields long, the whale will move out to the drill site and will begin to skim up a five-mile by five-mile area. they ll test it to see how well it works. it is a unique project.
dramatic developments. a big concern of a tropical storm churning. depending on the storm s path, it could interrupt work on two relief wells currently being drilled. we will have more on that for you. bp said they are making progress on drilling the wells that are the best hope to putting an end to the gusher. they are due to be completed in mid-august. the relief wells go at pace. the driller that is a relief well is 10,968 feet below the mud line. the largest oil skimming vessel and the ship called a whale has the capacity of more than 250 times that of modified fishing boats. the owners are still in negotiations with the coast guard for the needed permits. let s get more on tropical storm alex gaining strength on the