A painstaking operation to remove more than 2,000 containers from the cargo ship grounded off the south Devon coast is underway.
Two barge cranes from Rotterdam were alongside MSC Napoli to begin offloading her cargo at first light.
The 62,000-tonne vessel is listing badly a mile off Sidmouth, Devon, and the process is expected to take up to five months to complete.
Mark Clark, Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) spokesman, said: "It's a bit like a game of jenga because you have to remove all the items very very carefully without everything else falling."
The ship still has 2,291 containers on board, containing everything from BMW motorbikes to nappies, as well as fuel oil.
The largest crane will remove containers in priority order, a smaller crane will then take them to Portland Port in batches of up to 90 a time.
The process would have taken just a few days in port but Napoli never made it that far.
She suffered hull damage in a mid Channel storm on January 18 when 26 crew were rescued after abandoning into a lifeboat.
Napoli was then grounded a mile off Sidmouth on a World Heritage Site coast amid fears she would sink while on tow to Portland, Dorset.
A frenzy of looters combed nearby Branscombe Beach after 103 containers fell overboard and 56 washed ashore last week. The MCA fears that more containers could fall into the sea during the unloading operation and has urged people to stay away.
PA