Well, we know you’re considering it, so that’s at least one!
They mentioned anchoring in this article. They are supposed to start pumping the oil off the ship in the next day or so.
All I know is - if Mark Wahlberg had been on that ship it wouldn’t still be on it’s side. There would have been a lot of blood and then there’d be Mark saying “OK everybody, I’ve pushed the ship back upright with my incredible strength. Now I’m going to sail it to Switzerland and buy everyone some chocolates”.
Make that “push it to Switzerland”. 
20 years ago that would have been an Ahnold movie. Today, they’d make it with him, Stallone, Jason Statham, and maybe Carl Weathers, as older semi-retired guys who team up to amass the super-hero powers they still have left.
Besides, it’s more fitting that a bunch of retired musclemen are the ones to save a cruise ship.
Mark is so clever he can sail a ship across land and over mountains!
Carnival have hull insurance which will, subject to deductible, cover the physical loss of the ship. “Hull” in this context just refers to the ship. It is not a term of limitation. It covers the whole thing.
The vessel has liability insurance with protection and indemnity mutuals (known as “P&I Clubs” in the industry). Interestingly, it seems to have a split entry between two clubs which is unusual, no doubt because of the size of the risk. This will, again subject to deductibles, cover all liabilities. The limits on P&I cover are so high that they are effectively limitless. I don’t know where you get your $70m figure from. I couldn’t see it in your cites.
In most jurisdictions there are statutory limitations on liability for marine incidents (under one of various international conventions). I don’t know what if any limitation would be available to the owners in Italy.
There was an interesting opinion piece by an Australian/Italian journalist insider on the whole Schettino thing today in The Australian which is here. The Australian is behind a paywall but the weird thing is that if you google the storythen follow the google link you seem to be able to see the whole thing.
Anyway, if that link isn’t working then I’ll summarise later. The very short version is that this journo has grave misgivings about the reporting of this story and the thorough demonisation and character assassination of Schettino. He has some choice words about Italian journalism from which the key slanderous stories have emanated. And what made me post this in particular was his statement that the next stage will be to [del]make up[/del] report on a sex scandal. It seems from your post that this stage is now underway.
“I’m gettin’ too old for this shit!”
I watched a documentary on those super cargo carriers. What you don’t see is the incredible internal holding ability of the ships. There may be 10 layers of containers inside that thing.
My guess is it’ll sit there until it’s broken up by a series of storms - look at what happened ot the MV Rena here in NZ recently. The Rena (a containership considerably smaller than the Concordia) ran aground on a reef with a major list but still relatively upright. After three months she split in two and the stern has sunk. Admittedly the Concordia looks to be resting on the bottom, and may be in more sheltered waters. But surely being on its side can’t be good for the structure (already compromised by the big gash).
The Rena was in a very precarious and stressed situation: half on and half off a reef, in some extremely exposed waters. The only surprising thing is that it took so long to break up. When it first cracked in half I thought it would be gone in a matter of hours but it hung on for a few weeks.
The Costa Concordia is quite different. It’s in relatively sheltered waters and it seems to be aground its whole length. I think it will stay there till removed. It will be righted and floated away or cut up and taken away. I don’t think the Italian govt will let it remain as a wreck. I don’t have any experience with Italian standards for this sort of thing, but that is an educated guess.
But that isn’t what gives it stability. The containers are quite low density. The stability is from water ballast, if required, and from the main engine and other heavy parts being set low.
I’ll bow to you’re superior expertise. Another factor I hadn’t considered is the relative ages of the vessels, the Rena was more than 20 years old versus the Concordia’s 6.
The cruise line is offering surviving passengers $14K each for their troubles. Would you take it?: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/27/world/europe/italy-cruise-ship/index.html
Yes, I would take it,assuming I wasn’t injured, and they also refunded the cost of the cruise and my incidental expenses like airfare and a hotel stay that I would probably have spent in order to get to the embarkation point.
Oh, BTW, that is almost certainly tax free, as compensation for some loss or damages.
The current estimate is that it will take 10 months to complete the salvage operation. It appears to be an open question whether the ship can be re-floated, or must be cut up.
It might take a year and cost $300 million, but they’re gonna try it: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/18/world/europe/italy-cruise-ship/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Let’s hope the captain stays aground.
Lessons learned from the wreck: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/04/world/europe/costa-concordia/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
What I’ve understood from various maritime related sites is that the ship is already considered a total loss. It has been half-submerged for so long that it is felt that rebuilding it would not be cost-effective, even though it is relatively new.
I’d venture to say that the ship’s captain is not representative of Italian men. His behavior has been soundly criticized by Italian officials and the Italian general public already and there are indications that this particular captain had some real issues with judgment calls already.
How is that different from refloating ships sunk at Pearl Harbor?