Posted on 01/20/2012 5:40:20 PM PST by BfloGuy
"What do you do with a 1,000-foot wreck that's full of fuel and half-submerged on a rocky ledge in the middle of an Italian marine sanctuary? Remove it. Very carefully. Stuck on a rocky shoal off the Tuscan island of Giglio, leaving the wreck where it is probably isn't an option but removing a massive ship that's run hard aground and incurred major damage to the hull involves logistical and environmental issues that are just as large. First there's the fuel. A half a million gallons of fuel could wreak havoc on the marine ecosystem — the ship is smack in the middle of the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals. Engineers may need to go in from the side using a special drill to cut through the fuel tanks in a process called hot tapping. 'You fasten a flange with a valve on it, you drill through, access the tank, pull the drill back out, close the valve, and then attach a pumping apparatus to that,' says Tim Beaver, president of the American Salvage Association. 'It's a difficult task, but it's doable.' Then if it's determined that the Costa Concordia can be saved, engineers could try to refloat the ship and tug it back to dry dock for refurbishing. The job will likely require 'a combination of barges equipped with winches and cranes' to pull the cruise liner off its side then once the Concordia is off the rocks, 'they are going to have to fight to keep it afloat, just like you would a battle-damaged ship.' Another alternative is to cut the vessel into smaller, manageable parts using a giant cutting wire coated with a material as hard as diamonds called a cheese wire in a method was used to dismember the 55,000-ton Norwegian-flagged MV Tricolor. Regardless of how the Concordia is removed, it's going to be a difficult, expensive and drawn-out process. 'I don't see it taking much less than a year, and I think it could take longer,' says Bob Umbdenstock, director of planning at Resolve Marine Group."
Correct, then you pull it up right as you off load and pump out. Without all the fuel and etc, it will probably clear.
Now I understand why at one time they used ropes to keep those at sea in their bunks.
Uhhhhh, do ya think anybody was screaming??
A good read on how to salvage a wreck:
High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_seacowboys?currentPage=all
Those Sales guys don’t need no commonsense, that’s only required on the technical side. hehehehehe
Patch and pump... that’s all you can do .. I was thinking of the Mars oil platform and the heavy lift cranes that saved it but they can “only” handle 9,000 tons each..
They won’t ever move it again in one piece. It’s heavier than an aircraft carrier, there are no barge/crane combos on the planet near capable. They cannot refloat her, not high and dry on her side. She’s stuck and there she’ll stay, until she is cut up into pieces, and those pieces barged away.
Nope, can’t happen. She won’t move again in one unit.
Then you build a lever and use a barge/crane to lift on the lever.
Rest it across the back of Atlas.
Packrat35 - you need to fix your tagline - you have “know” when it should be “now”.
Fixed
What to do with a near 1000 foot long 114,000 ton cruise boat?
Well they could try to save it but currently at the moment its slipping 7mm every hour, thats something like two feet a day. Its not on sand, its on a couple of rock outcroppings so the starboard side is being smashed and augered in by the pressures against the rock surface.
Back in 2006 up around Alaska there was a cargo ship with over 4,000 brand new Mazdas, it too heeled over in an uncontrolled ballast shift, almost over on its side, but a crew with portable pumps were able to right it, the difference there was the vessel had its water tight integrity still good.
This monstrous floating condo has had its engine room flooded and its starboard upper decks all full of those quaint balconies are under water. The ship could be saved but it would have to be nearly gutted, it would most likely never be used as a Carnival owned ship as with this modern day and age its legacy will be haunting it and the cruise industry.
After lynching the captain, lynching his cat and selling his wife to the slave traders they will most like either find a way to wait just long enough for the vessel to slowly head deeper and then write it off, it becomes a new reef.
If by chance they can get it free I suspect it will be towed away and cut up. If it stays in place and yet found to be too structurally weak to move they will cut it in sections with a shore based chain cutter from top to bottom and then take these sections out one at a time, actually which is how most big ships are built.
If they do that they can literally section out the worst and just rebuild that section in a drydock.
This will be a historic salvage attempt, only in recent history has man been able to build the biggest lifting equipment and size isn’t the obstacle anymore.
Case in point moving the Cole, raising the S. Korean warship etc.
Hey buddie, no see no hear from you.
You think her back is strong enough to take the strain of lift bags and cables?
I think you are right they will just section it like a home cooked loaf of bread. Have some nice big shore based bull wheels and a lot of ship cutting chain and then wrap it around the top over and under and back to shore and just start turning the bullwheel, like a big band saw.
A picture that I saw seemed to have a captive boulder sticking out the side (that was visible). Maybe much more that was not visible.
A picture that I saw seemed to have a captive boulder sticking out the side (that was visible). Maybe much more that was not visible.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.