Friends

 

Click here for a link to watch a LIVE feed
<http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-201_162-1950/cbs-news-live-video/?tag=custom> 

 

This feed is live at sea and becomes active any time anything is done
towards the lifting of this ship wreck out of sea.

 

EM
On the 49th

 

WATCH: Crews begin raising the shipwrecked Costa Concordia 

Posted By: Associated Press · 9/16/2013 5:15:00 AM 

 

A complex system of pulleys and counterweights on Monday began pulling
upright the Costa Concordia cruise ship from its side on a Tuscan reef where
it capsized in 2012, an anxiously awaited operation of a kind that has never
been attempted on such a huge liner.

Engineer Sergio Girotto said the operation began at about 9 a.m. (0700GMT)
Monday, three hours late. The delay was due to an early morning storm that
pushed back a floating command room centre from its position close to the
wreckage. There, engineers using remote controls were guiding a synchronized
leverage system of pulleys, counterweights and huge chains looped under the
Concordia's carcass to delicately nudge the ship free from its rocky seabed
perch just outside Giglio Island's harbour.

The goal is to raise it from its side by 65 degrees to vertical, as a ship
would normally be, for eventual towing.

The operation, known in nautical parlance as parbuckling, is a proven method
to raise capsized vessels.

The USS Oklahoma was parbuckled by the U.S. military in 1943 after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But the 300-meter (1,000-foot), 115,000-ton
Concordia has been described as the largest cruise ship ever to capsize and
subsequently require the complex rotation.

The Concordia crashed into a reef on a winter's night Jan. 13, 2012.
Thirty-two people were killed after the captain steered the luxury liner too
close to the rocky coastline of Giglio, part of a chain of islands in
pristine waters.

The reef sliced a 70-meter-long (230-foot) gash into what is now the exposed
side off the hull, letting seawater rush in. The resulting tilt was so
drastic that many lifeboats couldn't be launched. Dozens of the 4,200
passengers and crew were plucked to safety by helicopters or jumped into the
sea and swam to shore. Bodies of many of the dead were retrieved inside the
ship, although two bodies were never found and might lie beneath the hulk.

The Concordia's captain is on trial on the mainland for alleged
manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship during the chaotic
and delayed evacuation. Capt. Francesco Schettino claims the reef wasn't on
the nautical charts for the liner's weeklong Mediterranean cruise.

Asked how long it would take for people on shore to see the ship making
significant movement toward the vertical, Girotto said that ``after a couple
of hours, you should be able to see something visible from a distance.''

The first couple of hours will be critical, engineers predicted. Pieces of
the granite seabed are embedded in the submerged side of the hull, which
divers haven't been able to fully inspect. The entire operation should take
between 10-12 hours.

Parbuckling was supposed to begin before dawn, but daylight broke even
before the barge carrying the engineers close to the ship could leave shore.
After the storm blew away, seas were calm.

Engineers have dismissed as a ``remote'' possibility the chance that the
Concordia might break apart during rotation and no longer be sound enough to
be towed to the mainland to be turned into scrap.

Costa Crociere SpA, the Italian unit of Miami-based Carnival Corp., is
picking up the tab for the parbuckling and its intricate preparation. The
company puts the costs so far at 600 million euros ($800 million), though
much of that will be passed onto its insurers.

           Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
           Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"

_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
[email protected]
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet

UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/

All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/

The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including 
attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way.
---------------------------------------

Reply via email to