Raising the Concordia

[penny3333]

There was a good article on Cruise Radio about raising the Concordia. Here is an excerpt from the article:
Popular Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri was awarded the contract to build thirty caissons (steel boxes) that will be used to float Costa Concordia in the next few months. The 30 steel caissons will be built at three different shipyards and will have a combined weight of 11,500-tons.

Once the ship has been stabilized, caissons will be fixed to the upper side of the hull and gradually filled with water as part of the operation to right the ship; righting will be performed using a system of “strand jacks” – a hydraulic mechanism for pulling cables – fixed to an undersea platform. When the ship is upright, caissons full of water also will be fixed to the other side of the hull. Then the caissons on both sides will be emptied to refloat the wreck; once floated, the wreck will be towed to an Italian port.

Costa Concordia is expected to be stabilized by the end of July with staging efforts to float the ship soon after.

The whole process is expected to take 12-months.

I do hope they'll post videos on this, I've never seen it done before and the Concordia is so huge!

[Jim C.]

I hope so too. I'd love to be doing that.

[Dave]

I'm with you, Jim. Being part of such a large and challenging project would be quite exciting to me.

[Jim C.]

You would think they could patch the gash in the hull as part of this. Then once you rolled it enough where the open areas were out of the water you could just pump the water out...

I can't imagine how big the "platform" is going to need to be in order to keep the ship from sliding off into deep water. It would be a very interesting problem from an engineering perspective.

The next question is, How much is it going to cost to put her back into service. I imagine the engines are going to need to be replaced at the very least maybe most of the internal systems at this point...

[Dave]

I wonder how many miles of cables make up the electrical distribution system? That'll likely all need to be pulled out and replaced. Plus all the storage tanks for fuel, water, sewage, will need to have at least an internal coating inspection.

I guess the bigger question for me is how many people would want to cruise on Concordia again? For many the thought of all those dead passengers and crew will weigh heavy on their minds.

[f-mattox]

I would think given a new brand and a new name and enough time, she would be accepted back into the cruising community. I know the Star Princess incident was nowhere near the magnitude of Concordia, but cruisers have chosen to overlook that.

I'm curious though: I heard Concordia was going to be sold for scrap; is there new information I'm not aware of?

[Dave]

I think Costa and their insurers have backed off on making a definite plan to scrap the vessel until it is floated and a full assessment is performed.

[f-mattox]

Thanks Dave. Considering her age (2006) scrapping seems so extreme. I would hope they rebuild and rebrand her.

[Dave]

If the ship does return to service I'd be surprised if it remained in the European market. I could see it moved to the Asia market and cruise from China or perhaps Australia.

They still haven't recovered all the bodies, which are now likely to be mostly skeletal remains is they were underwater.

Meanwhile the 'Captain' has been released from house arrest but is confined to his village.