COOS BAY — The New Carissa is vanishing.

The wood chip freighter ran aground in 1999 on the Oregon Coast near Coos Bay, and after failed attempts to get rid of it, much of its rusted hull has been grounded on a beach. But this summer, removal work began under a $25 million court judgment against the ship’s Japanese owners.

The Florida-based Titan Salvage crews have hacked away 850 tons of rusted steel, and the New Carissa is a few weeks away from disappearing altogether, company officials say.

“The ship now looks like a dead beast whose best parts were sacrificed to turkey vultures and scavengers, not much more than a carcass,” Susan Chambers of The World in Coos Bay wrote in a blog recording the dismantling of the New Carissa.

The company had nearly run out of space to store the scrap metal it had been piling on the deck, but it was able to get a barge out last week to haul salvage away and make room for more.

David Parrot, the salvor’s managing director, says the last major part of the ship is the engine room.

Crews have hooked chains to it and pulled it high enough to allow welders to continue to cut it apart without being blasted by heavy surf.

By today or Monday, Parrot says, the 260-ton main engine will be removed, leaving only what’s left of the ship’s starboard side to deal with.

He said decisions about how to deal with that final part will depend on how the ship responds as the engine is removed.