How to salvage the Costa Concordia INTACT

Maritime News Marine Incidents
1

I don’t claim to be a salvage expert, but I was thinking about this over the weekend and I thought that perhaps adding external flotation to the Costa Concordia might be the way to go. Like huge “water wings”. Essentially, you would weld fittings all along the hull, above the ship’s center of gravity, that you could secure giant inflatable buoys to. After waiting for high tide, and after pumping as much fuel, water, sewage, etc off the ship as possible, they might be able to drag the ship off the ledge. Once in deeper water, the buoys attached to the hull (because they are attached above the center of gravity) would hopefully pivot the ship upright.

Because the ship is full of water, it of course might possibly sink straight away, but then again,if you had enough of these buoys, and closed all the right watertight doors, maybe it wouldn’t? Perhaps it then might be feasible to tow it away to a drydock?

I don’t see any way of picking the ship up off the ledge from where it is now, and cutting it up doesn’t sound like it’s an option that’s being considered.

Feel free to shoot my idea down or propose another idea…

2

I’m not an expert either but it seems to me the first job that’s needed is to secure her in place and get moving on the salvage plan. Her lying exposed to the elements can’t be helping the situation.

3

How exactly do they secure her in place? Thinking anchors and cables, but with the hull damage, that might cause the vessel to break up if stressed???

4

My first thought would to fully seal ALL the internal WT doors so that intact compartments can be pumped out, and since the major hull damage is exposed hard patch it, and roll the ship upright using combination of cables and anchors and deadman and dewater.

Nah. Scrap it in situ.

5

I’ll sling load ir under my Huey and set down anywhere they please.

6

[QUOTE=skycowboy;63161]I’ll sling load ir under my Huey and set down anywhere they please.[/QUOTE]

Just make sure someone’s rolling video… I want to post that footage to the blog!

7

This is how its done.

8

Well, 53000 tons displacement, say first we attach the water wings, then we blow air into the fuel and water tanks, and double bottom tanks, with some means of venting to relieve excess pressure as it rises. Say we get 6000 tons of lift from internal tanks, then we need 47000 tons of additional lift, no, say 50K for some margin, times 32 cubic feet, so 1.6 million cubic feet of water wings, say 100 with 500 tons of lift each, 16000 cubic feet each, 24’ dia x 40’ high each, 50 per side to spread the load.

Patch the side first.

One trick will be to inflate the floats/water wings at a rate and in a way that will lift it up, float it off, straighten it up, and not have it slide into deep water during the process, slowly and evenly enough to not break the ship. Attach one set to the high side, inflated with little initial load, and the other set to the low side with cables underneath or attached to the hull. Inflate carefully. Open doors to let the 100,000 tons of water inside out as it rises. Pray none of the floats gets punctured on the ship’s superstructure and deflates. Figure out how to balance the load from side to side.

Now we have a 53000 ton ship, 40-130 feet under water suspended by balloons, barges and floats. Too deep to fit into a drydock. Gently rotate to the upright position. Seal it up, blow air in and pump out the water until it floats on its own bottom. Hire 5000 laborers to scrub & haul out the ruined interior. Rebuild. Sell.

Or barges with winches on one side, airbags on the other with enough muscle to lift and rotate it off, and enough margin in case of error.

Or, a lot of blocks of styrofoam judiciously stuffed inside.

Will it be worth doing after pickling in salt water for 6-9 months? I doubt it. $150MM for the residual hull, $500-600M for rebuilding the ruined finishing and systems? $75MM for the salvage work? $25MM for the cleaning?

9

Titan Salvage and Micoperi have won the contract to remove the Costa Concordia. http://gcaptain.com/titan-salvage-italys-micoperi/

10

I am sorry but look at the other great feats of righting ships in conditions like this…SS.NORMANDIE & USS OKLAHOMA. In both cases the superstructures had to be removed before the hull could be brought upright. I believe the same will have to happen with the CC before she is salvaged otherwise intact and able to float. Without all that wieght, bringing her upright would not be as difficult as righting her as she is and who cares about the bloody hull…trying to get passengers to book a cruise on a jinxed deathship is ridiculous especially when the rebuild cost will near the cost of new construction.

11

What a waste of time. With all of the contaminents o/b, she is destined for the cutting torch anyways.
That would save a lot of money and time. But, the Italians obviously don’t agree.

12

What a waste of time. With all of the contaminents o/b, she is destined for the cutting torch anyways.
That would save a lot of money and time. But, the Italians obviously don’t agree.

That’s what I say…bring in the wrecking barges and cut her into pieces in situ but that will still entail securing her to not move and to make it so that the hull can float on her own bottom long enough to tow to where that can be disposed of. There is nothing there left worth saving. Absolutely everything is garbage now except the steel. The Italians will have to relent to a certain extent on scrapping on site. There is just no way imo, that the ship can be removed if they don’t.

13

Well, I guess this thead is close to done…

Costa Concordia Salvage Plan

14

[QUOTE=Mikey;69697]Well, I guess this thead is close to done…

Costa Concordia Salvage Plan[/QUOTE]

Here’s my take on the plan as presented

#1

Seems simple enough but you better have alot of chains and how to secure them to the beach? This indicates subsea piles which is going to disturb the seafloor significantly and be hard to drive into solid rock but ok otherwise

#2

How is this subsea platform to be secured to the seafloor? Piles? I thought minimal impact to the environment was one of the highest priorities? Is that rock they plan to drive piles into? That won’t be easy but let’s hope that the substrate is hard and stable or the whole mess slides down the slope once the weight of the hull is sitting on it.

will have to come back to the next steps in a short while

15

Ping-pong balls. Lots and lots of ping-pong balls!

Hey, you ever put a match to one of those little suckers? Try it sometime (hey hold my beer and watch this!)

16

I am not a salvage guy yet to me the whole plan looks shaky at best. Take a look at just this photo:

Can you imagine how hard it is going to be to anchor that platform to the seabed strong enough to support the weight of the ship? Is that solid rock beneath that? It must be if they intend for it to support the ship and frame both. How on earth are they going to drive piles into that? Isn’t that alone going to disturb the precious marine ecosystem that the Italian government is so intent on protecting?

I also have to ask if the slope that the ship is resting on is so steep, how in the hell has it not managed to slide off into the abyss already?

Later they plan to attach wires to the outboard edge of the platform and then heave the hull upright thus:

I mean that is a whole lot of force wanting to yank that whole platform upward while trying to pull the ship down! Little photodrawings are one thing but how are they going to make this work? Not saying it won’t but I truly would like to know more about the details of this process.

17

Sloane loves “Blow Jobs”, but rumor on the waterfront is that he’s very concerned because the ship is sliding downhill faster than the platforms are being installed…

They have tie back wires, not sure why they’re paying out… From. http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=21868

There are certainly cheaper ways of dealing with wrecks. The most cost-effective solution is simply to leave it where it is. Blowing it up with dynamite is another solution. Sloane is an expert at doing that. He opens a folder on his laptop that he named “Blow Jobs” and shows films of stranded ships that collapse like high-rise buildings. “Blow jobs are always an option,” says Sloane with a grin, “but not for Giglio.”

18

Interesting, but totally irrelevant to the salvage but, worth a look. http://jalopnik.com/a-quadcopters-eye-view-of-the-costa-concordia-shipwrec-509098496