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Crippled cruise ship upright once more
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Engineers celebrated their success yesterday as the crippled Costa Concordia cruise ship was pulled completely upright during an unprecedented, 19-hour operation to wrench it from its side where it capsized last year off Tuscany.
The remarkable maritime salvage project now allows for a renewed search for the two bodies that were never recovered from the 32 people killed in the shipwreck, and for the ship to eventually be towed away.
The Concordia’s submerged side suffered significant damage during the 20 months it bore the weight of the massive ship on the jagged reef, and the daylong operation to right it stressed that flank as well. Exterior balconies were mangled and entire sections looked warped, though officials said the damage probably looked worse than it really was.
The damage must be repaired to stabilize the ship so it can withstand the coming winter, when seas and winds will whip the luxury liner, which is to be towed and turned into scrap sometime next year.
Shortly after 4am, a foghorn boomed off Giglio Island and the head of Italy’s Civil Protection agency, Franco Gabrielli, announced that the ship had reached vertical and that the operation to rotate it — known as parbuckling — was complete. It was a dramatic operation that unfolded in real time as TV cameras recorded the final hours when the rotation accelerated, with gravity pulling the ship into place.
“We completed the parbuckling operation a few minutes ago the way we thought it would happen and the way we hoped it would happen,” said Franco Porcellacchia, project manager for the Concordia’s owner, Costa Crociere SpA.
“A perfect operation, I must say,” with no environmental spill detected so far, he said.
For Italy, it was a moment of pride after the horror and embarrassment of the January 13 collision last year. The Concordia slammed into a reef off Giglio Island after it came too close to shore in an apparent stunt. Captain Francesco Schettino earned public contempt when he abandoned the ship before everyone was evacuated, and then refused coast guard orders to go back on board. He is now on trial.
The Concordia drifted, listed and capsized just off the island’s port.
Other recovery efforts are now possible as the ship is upright. Officials will open cabin safes and return valuables to their owners.
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