On 29 August 2022 the bulk carrier OS 35 collided with the LNG carrier Adam LNG as it left the Bay of Gibraltar anchorage. The Gibraltar Port Authority directed the damaged ship to the Eastside, where it was beached off Catalan Bay, and suspended all port operations for approximately four hours before reopening the port for all activity. Two days later the hull broke, and operations were suspended again so that every resource could be concentrated on the emergency. The wreck left Gibraltar’s territorial waters only on 28 July 2023, after a removal tendered on behalf of the owners and insurers and carried out by a Dutch contractor. The sequence shows that reopening a port, removing an obstruction and completing an industrial contract are separate events, decided by different parties on different evidence. Europe has firms that dredge, lift and transport heavy loads, salvage casualties and treat contaminated sediment, and public authorities that can order and pay for such work. Owning a dredger or having removed a wreck, however, is not the same as being able to deliver a recovery service when a port needs one. What must be documented before European dredging and wreck-removal capacity can be counted on to restore commercial access to a port?