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Members of the Italian Carabinieri Police Divers
unit dive near the bell of the cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Italian island of Giglio. (Ufficio Stampa Gruppo
Carabinieri, EPA / January 19, 2012)
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As workers remove the cruise ship's fuel — a
weeks-long task — Costa Cruises will decide whether to repair the vessel or
scrap it for parts.
It's a disturbing sight: a massive, half-submerged cruise
ship, dashed against rocks on an island off the Tuscan coast of Italy.
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Giglio, Italy — An Italian police diver swims near the
half-submerged Costa Concordia as recovery operations continue around the
crippled cruise ship.
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But as the gruesome job of searching for missing
victims of the Costa Concordia tragedy winds down in the coming days, a
daunting task awaits salvage workers poised to deal with the wrecked hulk
itself. It's a task that may take months before the scene changes much.
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Giglio, Italy — A satellite view shows the Costa Concordia on
its starboard side off Giglio island.
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Workers have begun placing booms around the ship to
prevent oil spills as crews wait for the OK to start removing 2,400 tons of
fuel and oil from the double-hulled vessel, which ran aground last week on the island of Giglio. The removal is estimated to take
three to four weeks. Engineers, meanwhile, will gauge the structural damage to
the $450-million ship. Next comes the decision on whether to repair and
re-float it or cut it into pieces for parts and materials.
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Giglio, Italy — Italian police divers pause in their search of
the waters near the wrecked Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast on Wednesday.
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The work will be done by salvage companies that
will inspect and assess the damage and make recommendations on how to proceed.
But the job will be unusual for them: Such companies typically rescue container
ships or oil tankers that run aground. Here, they must deal with a
951-foot-long, 17-deck cruise ship with 1,500 cabins.
"This one is quite difficult because you have
all these compartments in the ship, which is top-heavy to begin with,"
said Frances Leckey, operations director for Resolve Marine Group, a Florida company that
salvages wrecked ships. "This is not common at all."
Operators of the cruise ship said no decision will
be made on whether the Costa Concordia can be repaired until all the missing passengers
and crew members are recovered and workers remove the ship's fuel and oil to
prevent a leak.
Authorities in Italy have accused the ship's
captain of making a reckless maneuver that brought the cruise liner so close to
shore that rocks tore holes in the side of the hull.
Of the 4,200 people aboard the ship, at least 11
were killed and 21 were still missing. Search efforts by divers continued
Thursday.
"Costa's main focus remains on the search and
rescue operation and on getting guests and crew home safely," said a
spokesman for Costa Cruises, which operated the ship, carrying 4,200 people.
The spokesman said the cruise line company has not
yet determined the cost of the rescue or future repair work. Costa Cruises'
parent company, Miami-basedCarnival Corp., has said it expects to lose nearly
$100 million from the loss of the use of the ship for at least 10 months.
Carnival announced Thursday that in response to the accident it will review all
of its safety and emergency response procedures among the 10 subsidiary cruise
companies it operates.
The vessel is resting on its starboard side atop
protruding rocks, in a position that salvage experts say makes inspecting and
repairing the vessel complicated because any movement could drop the ship into
deeper water.
"If you get it loose from the rock, there is a
risk of slipping down further," said Martijn Schuttevaer, a spokesman for
Royal Boskalis Westminster, the parent of Smit Salvage, the Dutch company hired
to pump fuel from the Costa Concordia. Costa Cruises has yet to hire a firm to
assess the damage to the ship, he said.
Pumping the fuel from the vessel could take three
to four weeks and require workers to drill fist-size holes in the hull,
Schuttevaer said. Smit workers must heat the fuel so it flows out faster, he
said.
While the fuel is being removed, salvage
specialists say, divers will probably inspect the vessel to determine the
extent of the damage and produce detailed surveys of the rocks and ocean floor
around the ship.
"It could take many weeks of preparation and
many weeks to execute the salvage plan," said Tim Beaver, president of the
American Salvage Assn. trade group.
If Costa Cruises decides to repair the ship, the
first steps would be to seal the gashes in the hull and pump the water out of
the vessel, salvage experts said. As water is pumped out, they said, crews
probably would use cables to help pull the vessel vertical.
But pulling the ship upright could cause more
damage to the hull because it rests on coastal rocks, Beaver said. Further
complicating the job, he said, is that it may be impossible to position cranes
on the rocks on the starboard side to lift the vessel.
"On its most basic level, it is a simple
physics problem," said Beaver, who has been working in the marine salvage
business for 35 years. "But it's complicated by the details."
Experts say cutting up the vessel and hauling away
the pieces on barges would be a simpler task but would take much longer.
"In this case," said Schuttevaer of Smit
Salvage, "so much of the ship is above water that you could remove
everything above water by hand, bit by bit."
