Any chance they can get the grounded Italian ship back upright?

A more recent pic: Costa Concordia Wreck Seen From The Air In Impressive Photo | HuffPost The World Post

They’ll try to pull the ship upright tomorrow: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/15/3628337/italy-ok-to-right-shipwrecked.html

Live link

After some five hours of pulling on the cables she has visibly rolled over a bit.

Most boring video ever :wink:

Of course, there could be a few amazing moments. Thanks for sharing that link!

For impatient folks like me, see this rendering of the plan (from the live video page):

Indeed!

Just had a press conference. Highlights as I caught them:

Rotation completed is 10+ degrees. Side of the ship is now clear of the rocks. No word on the missing bodies. No pollutive leakage so far.

Current plan is to continue with the cables for another 4-5 hours then they will start filling the sponsons to get a gravity assist. Speed of rotation will likely remain the same until filling, then might be subject to change at the salvage master’s discretion.

Weather is expected to worsen into the evening, but current forecast shows everything staying within acceptable parameters for continuing the work. In fact, the forecast winds may actually be in a direction to provide assistance.

So, in summary, on plan, but going a bit slower than the most optimistic estimates. Just another day at the office…

I read somewhere that they intend to enter the ship when it is upright to search for the two missing persons and retrieve people’s belongings.

Yeah, that’s what they said, but there was some (understandable) concern that the side lifting off the bottom might dislodge them and cause them to float out. They had people standing by for that (as well as other debris that loosened).

Been looking at the animations and such and it’s a fascinating operation. “Funny” thing (dark sense of humor) - all of the animations show this pristine white ship being refloated and towed away. The actual pictures show something different!

They’ve modified the plan a little…

:wink:

2nd Press Conference:

  1. Some problems with slack in the pulling cables. They had to be “wound up” to prevent interference with the active cables. Now saying that they won’t be done until after midnight, so more like 15 hours total.
  2. Now saying they want 24 degrees of rotation before switching to gravity-based rolling using the caissons.
  3. Funny moment, the cable problem was planned for and someone asked “why if it was planned for, did you say you could do it in 8 hours?” Guy replies, "that’s the attitude of this country, instead of saying ‘good job in planning’, you say ‘why did you say you could do it faster?’. Audience laughed, but guy obviously lost his temper a bit. Trying to walk it back a bit now.
  4. Journalists are being a little pissy - accusing the salvage operators of not educating them about all possible problems and contingency plans. Oop, there goes the temper again, now berating the journalists for focusing on the ‘minor issues’. “The issue shouldn’t be the timing, it issue should be that it gets done correctly and successfully.”

Some cool minidrone footage over the wreck: Video News - CNN

Huzzah! Damn near level.

Well done!

I don’t know, the The John Denver Experience seems cool.

Concordia is UPRIGHT. This far from being removed from Giglio .

The next step is to add more floats onto the other side, so that the whole can float in a stable fashion. They won’t float her (with caissons assisting) for months yet.

She is NOT off the rocks. She is on the rocks in shallow water.
She is NOT safe… She could easily roll over one way or the other, or break the barriers and sink into the depths.
She is NOT floating. She is sunk on the bottom.
She is NOT salvaged. She is going to remain sunk and stuck there for months to come !
She is NOT going to be repaired.

See the whole maneuver compressed into two minutes: http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/article19038.ab

There might be some Swedish narration (can’t say if as my computer doesn’t have sound).

That seemed easy enough. Why didn’t they just do that from the get-go? :smiley:

$795 billion? I knew it was expensive, but not that expensive!

Close up shots of the raised ship. I feel bad for the residents that have to look at it all winter. It’s so filthy and crashed in. I’m sure the locals look forward to seeing it towed away next Spring.

it’s the Crushed Concordia.