As the removal of fuel gets underway, salvage planning continues.
This latest from the Chicago Tribune echoes many of the same issued brought up in the earlier BBC article in terms of the issues facing salvors.
If the Costa Concordia is refloated, it will represent the biggest and trickiest operation of it's type ever undertaken, even trickier than the Kursk salvage, as that vessel was already on the bottom rather than perched precariously on a rocky ledge. Also, the superstructure of the Concordia is lightly built and cannot withstand the kinds of stresses that will be necessary to pull the ship upright. Finally, the ledge the ship is perched on may be too unstable to support a refloating.
It seems increasingly likely that the ship will be cut up
in situ, like
this Maltese-flagged oil tanker that beached only a week or so ago in France (a great series of photos). Notice, however that the tanker is much more simply constructed than a cruise ship - the main hold or holds are a series of large voids (once the cargo was pumped out) that make chopping the ship up fairly straightforward business.
The Costa Concordia, on the other hand, is completely full of waterlogged fittings and appointments, and subdivided into thousands of little rooms. It is perched on a ledge, and cutting bits off the ship might cause the rest to slip into deeper water. Also, the Maltese tanker above weighed 2,000 tons - the Costa Concordia in it's current state is thought to weigh 45,000 tons.
SMIT estimate that just cutting the ship up where it lies could take two years and cost over $50 million.
priceless
