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September 16th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Giant steel boxes attached to the upturned, port side of the ship will help
roll it over onto six steel platforms underwater, together covering an area
larger than a football pitch.
Reporters and cameramen work with the backdrop of the Costa Concordia
ship off the coast of the Island of Giglio, Italy
If the project is successful, the ship will remain sitting on the platforms
until it can be towed away next year and broken up for scrap in an Italian
port.
“All is well,” with the operation, announced Sergio Girotto, a
senior engineer from Micoperi, the Italian salvage company which together
with an American firm, Titan, is leading the operation.
“Our estimate of 12 hours (for the completion of the job) remains valid,
although it will depend on the behaviour of the wreck.” Clouds of
sulphurous gas are likely to be emitted from the wreck as it is rolled
upright, engineers said.
Salvagers put the final cables in place in preparation for the cruise
ship Costa Concordia to be rightened off the coast of Giglio, Italy
Smelling of rotten eggs, the gas is the result of the vast quantities of food,
drink and other supplies sloshing around and rotting inside the ship, said
Franco Porcellacchia, a senior project manager with Costa Cruises, the
Italian company that owns the cruise ship.
“That’s something that we will keep a check on constantly,” he said.
The operation is being masterminded from a control room on a barge which has
been positioned close to the bow of the stricken ship.
Progress is being monitored with the help of cameras attached to five unmanned
submarines which can be remotely operated by engineers.
Five television cameras have been fitted to the Concordia’s highest deck and
are also relaying back images.
Members of the US salvage company Titan and Italian firm Micoperi work
at the wreck of Italy’s Costa Concordia cruise ship near the harbour of
Giglio Porto
“The images and sounds will allow the engineers to make adjustments
depending on any twist and torsion arising on the ship,” a statement
from the engineering consortium said.
Italian officials say they are “100 per cent” confident that they
can pull off the immense task successfully.
But there is great apprehension on the island – an operation on this scale has
never been attempted before.
The technique used to raise the Concordia – known as “parbuckling”
– is not new technology and in fact has its origins in the 19th century.
Parbuckling means rotating a sunken ship in order to return it to a vertical
position.
The technique has been used in the past mainly to recover warships, notably
the capsized USS Oklahoma, which was raised by the US military in 1943 after
the bombing of Pearl Harbour.
The fate of the Oklahoma does not augur well for the Concordia, however.
She was stripped of her armaments and sold for scrap, but while being towed
from Hawaii to a breakers yard in San Francisco in 1947, sank in a storm.
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