The divers prepared the turret roof (which was at the bottom now because it had overturned when the ship sank) by excavating under the turret and placed steel beams and angle irons to reinforce it for its move t a lifting platform for the second stage of recovery.
A large eight-legged lifting frame, nicknamed "The Spider," was carefully maneuvered over the turret to move it onto the platform and the entire contraption and turret would be lifted by a crane aboard the Wotan vessel.
The divers discovered one skeleton in the turret on 26 July before the lift and spent a week carefully chipping about half of it free of the concreted debris; the other half was inaccessible because it was underneath the rear of one of the cannons.
With Tropical Storm Cristobal closing in on the recovery team and time and money running out, the team made the decision to raise the turret on 5 August 2002. After 41 days of work, the turret broke the surface of the Atlantic Ocean at 5:30 pm to the cheers of everyone aboard the Wotan and other nearby recovery ships.
--Old B-MonitorTurret
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