Let's all hope this works:

Choppy seas have temporarily foiled attempts to see if a giant oil skimmer can be a silver bullet for cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bob Grantham, spokesman for Taiwanese shipping firm TMT, says the company's vessel, dubbed "A Whale," will need further testing off the coast of Louisiana.

Grantham said in an e-mail Monday that conditions in the Gulf over the weekend were too choppy to get definitive answers on the vessel's capability.

Billed as the world's largest oil skimmer, "A Whale" is supposed to be able to suck up 21 million gallons of oily water per day.

Grantham says testing will resume as soon as the water is calmer.

Cloudy skies cast a pall over South Florida beaches and rough seas hampered clean-up efforts in the Gulf -- even as crews were hoping a massive new skimmer would get the government green-light to join the fight against the growing oil spill.

Rough seas also kept clean-up vessels idle off the coasts of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi over the holiday weekend, officials said. The current spate of bad weather is likely to last well into this week, according to the National Weather Service.

Among the ships that continued to work the spill off the coast of Louisiana was a converted oil tanker called "A Whale." Its makers, Taiwan's TMT, say the craft can process up to 21 millions gallons of oil-fouled water a day.

"A Whale" had undergone tests in a patch of water close to the wellhead over the weekend as the government tried to determine the vessel's effectiveness. The ship is also awaiting approval from the Environmental
Protection Agency.

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