Costa Concordia Salvage

[mistermack]

They are winching it upright as I type.
The worst bit is past, because they have got it to move, it looks like about 20 feet has come above the water.

It's costing 500 million. And one more interesting fact, the ship is twice the tonnage of the Titanic.
That's what I call an impressive bit of salvage.

[klr]

Obviously, it's worth the salvage effort. If they just needed to clear the area so that other ships could use it again, I'm sure they'd have scrapped her by now.

[mistermack]

It's taking longer than the estimates that were given, which were ten to twelve hours.
Not surprising, it's a mammoth job.

[klr]

Perfect for 24-hour news channels.

[mistermack]

Wikipedia says it cost 450 million Euros in 2004 and launched in 2006.
But I assume that was for a finished ship, so I doubt if there is any profit in the salvage. It's probably the inurance industry that is responsible for what happens to it. This might be the cheapest way to remove it.

One interesting thing, when it was launched, the champagne bottle didn't break, which is supposed to be unlucky.

More like bloody careless. Which hasn't stopped. I dunno if it's Italians doing the salvage.

[Clinton Huxley]

It would be cheaper to lower the Med than raise the Concordia

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk 2

[mistermack]

BBC news just said something about ''technical problems'' hitting the salvage operation. I don't like the sound of that.

[Svartalf]

It's taking longer than the estimates that were given, which were ten to twelve hours.
Not surprising, it's a mammoth job.

It also started late due to the weather

[mistermack]

Apparently there were some problems with cables earlier, that caused a bit of delay.
It's going much slower than they originally said, but that doesn't surprise me.

It's rolled about 25 degrees from it's original position, and it looks like it's got about 45 deg to go, to be completely upright.
I don't think it's moved at all in the last couple of hours. The Telegraph has a live camera feed online.
It came up pretty quick, the first twenty degrees or so, but it's not moved lately.

[piscator]

"Ed"?

Erectile disfunction

[jaydot]

[JimC]

They need the little red tug that could!

[mistermack]

Apparently there's no intention of refitting the ship. It's going to be towed to a dock and scrapped. Seems a waste but I'm sure there are good reasons why it can't be mended.

What I find mysterious in this case is how such an absolute wanker could be in charge of such a ship.
How do these people get the job? Someone must have known what a prick the guy was. To sail a ship like that onto the rocks in good weather takes a special kind of dickhead.

[samphony]

Fuck it - a couple of jump leads and a good push would have got her going.

[mistermack]

The job went well. It is fascinating, watching something like that happen. You want it to go well, but what makes it compulsive for me is the size of the disaster if it went wrong. I didn't want it to fail, but the thought of what would happen if it all went wrong made me keep checking it out.

I'd forgotten what a complete asshole the captain was. He lied to the coastguard on the radio, saying that they had just suffered a '' blackout '' and didn't give orders to evacuate for about an hour, till the thing started tilting.
But that hour was vital, because they couldn't launch many of the lifeboats after that because of the list.
Then he got his ass off the ship as fast as he could, and refused to go back on when ordered to by the coastguard, claiming that he could ''do more'' from the rescue boat. Leaving hundreds of passengers to fend for themselves.
Now he's trying to bargain for a plea for a lesser sentence.

If anybody in history had less to bargain with, I can't think of them. He deserves at least 25 years. They're so fucking lenient in Italy though, he'll probably get a couple of years, which he won't serve any of.