Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images
Updated: 1/18/12 7:15PM
A salvage company with over 170-years of maritime service, Smit Tak, has been contracted to the site of Costa Concordia to pump fuel from the ship and begin the salvage process.
This will be the initial process in floating Costa Concordia off the bottom of the sea.
10 ship salvage experts have been sent to the island off the Tuscan Coast to start assessing the project.
“Our immediate priority is to account for all passengers and crew, and to secure the vessel to ensure that there are no environmental impacts,” Costa said in a statement this afternoon.
According to Radio Netherlands, “Once the search for survivors and corpses has been completed, the team will begin pumping thousands of tons of fuel from the ship’s tanks in order to prevent an environmental disaster.”
“In the hours immediately after the accident, Costa Cruises commissioned leading worldwide salvage experts Smit Salvage BV, of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, to draw up a plan to recover the reserves of fuel from Costa Concordia. From the outset, this plan has been shared with the relevant authorities and, as a result of their full cooperation, is expected to be implemented by the end of the week,” Costa said Wednesday in a statement.
The company has offered to salvage the whole vessel but an agreement hasn’t been reached yet.
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Sky News report Sunday 15th January that the ship is too big for salvage and will be scrapped on site. Given that this is a new ship worth hundreds of millions of dollars, surely a salvage operation will be attempted?
It definitly can and will be refloated probably then to be towed to the scrappers.
I think the salvage operation will go much smoother than we can all imagine, If they patch the holes and pump it out and empty the contents then slide it off near the ledge the ship may just right itself using the ledge as a fulcrum. with all the techonlogy and engineers I think they should have to re float it in order for us to learn more about ship wrecks. I am sorry for such a disaster to strike during a time of everyones happiness. very sad for everyone involved. I feel for the ships crew that were just trying to give everyone a better time. god bless you all
It is sad to see such a nice ship on its side. I remember a story years ago of a Japanese ship that sank and they wanted the ship back again. What they did as I understand it was they used ping pong balls to fill the rooms up with displacing the water and then the ship floated again. With the Concordia I think something similar could be done and would be cheaper in the long run and faster. If each state room is filled with say even plastic balls via a hole in the bottom of each door to a room it would soon displace the water. After it is re floated then the balls could be sold as a souvenir to folks . Using very heavy equipment could be dangerous and costly when perhaps a simple use of round balls would work and be effective in re floating the ship. I do hope that soon the hole in the hull can be welded up and that this idea would be considered as a possible way to start the re-floating process. Best regards Bill Hall in Ontario Canada.