Hard to believe that this vessel can't be tugged

I know nothing about the task of attaching a cable to an abandoned ghost ship, the Modern Express, and then tugging it to a desired location. But I hardly imagined that it might be rocket science...

The vessel has been drifting around now for six days and nights in the Gulf of Gascony, and we're told that the weather has been too rough to grab hold of the stricken ship. There's a vague possibility, if the weather calms down, that a cable can still be attached to the Modern Express, enabling it to be towed away. If this is not the case, observers believe that the vessel is likely to run aground on a sandy French beach between Monday evening and the following day.

We're told that there'll be no oil spill, since the vessel is carrying a huge stock of timber (which surely shifted during the rough weather, causing the vessel to lean over) and merely 300 tons of fuel. Local people seem to be awaiting stoically, almost calmly, the impending shipwreck. And I keep on wondering what's going to happen to all that splendid timber, as soon as it floats ashore...

BREAKING NEWS [Monday 1 Feb 2016 14h30] The crew of a Spanish tugboat named Centaurus has succeeded in fixing a cable aboard the Modern Express, which is now being towed successfully in a westerly direction towards Spain at a speed of over 5 km/h.

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