Costa Concordia Salvage Makes Progress

Image credit: The Parbuckling Project

Salvors with the Titan-Micoperi consortium on Tuesday announced the completion of another important step towards the parbuckling -or uprighting- of the Costa Concordia shipwreck in Giglio: the process of positioning and installment of the two blister tanks on the wreck’s bow.

The blister tanks are special sponsons, or caissons, that will provide buoyancy to the bow from the parbuckling operation to the eventual refloating.

SEE ALSO: Costa Concordia Salvage Plan

The operation to install the blister tanks was carried out using the dynamically positioned heavy lift ship Svenja, which is owned and operated by SAL Heavy Lift and has been on scene for much of the salvage.

The operation was carried out by the MICOPERI 30 with support from the SAL LONE.

The steel tanks, with a net buoyancy of 4,000 tons, are fixed to the Costa Concordia’s hull by three anchor pipes installed in the ship’s thruster tunnels. The whole structure (including two blister tanks, the tubular frame and the three anchor pipes) weighs about 1,700 tons and measures 23 meters long by 20 meters high and have a breadth of about 15 meters.

The tanks were built at Fincantieri shipyards in Palermo and Ancona and assembled in Palermo.

The first sponsons were installed on the Costa Concordia in April. In total, 15 of the watertight chambers will be installed on the port side to provide leverage during the parbuckling, and then emptied to provide for flotation. An additional two are then expected to be installed once the ship is upright.

As gCaptain reported, the parbuckling, easily the most anticipated and important part of the salvage, is expected to be carried out in the beginning of September. The operation is expected to take several days.