By
Rebecca Gibson |
The Titan-Micoperi salvage team has successfully completed the first stage of its operation to refloat Costa Cruises’ Costa Concordia off the coast of Giglio Island, Italy.
Engineers started the operation to refloat the ship on 14 July after Nick Sloane, the senior salvage master, and the rest of his team arrived at the Remote Operations Center, which is located on Concordia. Work to remove the final 1,000 tonnes of weight began at 8.30am.
Concordia has now been partially refloated and her bow and stern are about 2.2m above the underwater platform she has been resting on since the parbuckling project started in September 2016.
The wreck has also been moved and securely moored 30m towards the east of Giglio Island with the assistance of tugs. On 15 July, engineers began to attach and tension the final four chains and six cables to the vessel, enabling them to lower the starboard sponsons to their final position.
Over the next few days, technicians will use a pneumatic system to gradually empty all 30 sponsons of ballast water, providing the necessary buoyancy to raise the ship one deck at a time from deck 6 to deck 3. At the end of this operation the ship will have a draft of around 18.5 m.
Concordia is currently scheduled to depart Giglio on 21 July, when she will be towed to the San Giorgio del Porto shipyard in Genoa over the course of four or five days. The ship will then be dismantled and recycled during a four-phase, 22-month project.