[caption id="attachment_70441" align="alignright" width="624"] Costa Concordia: Stricken ship set upright in Italy
[/caption]The Shipwrecked Concordia Successfully Parbucked

Giglio (Lily) Island, Italy - the Cost Concordia cruise ship capsized last year killing 32 persons aboard the ship after its captain sailed the vessel into the reef of this tiny resort island on January 13, 2012.

Since that time, preparations were made to right the capsized vessel in a procedure known as "parbuckling". Now, twenty months of careful preparations paid this week when the salvage master, Nick Sloane of South Africa, was able to get the vessel turned right.

"We completed the parbuckling operation a few minutes ago the way we thought it would happen and the way we hoped it would happen," said Franco Porcellacchia, project manager for the Concordia's owner, Costa Crociere SpA.

"A perfect operation, I must say," with no environmental spill detected so far, he said.

Parbuckling has never been attempted on a vessel of this size, but Sloane succeeded and has certainly made a name for himself. The once beautiful vessel is now mud stained from being capsized so long. The plan is now to get the vessel sea worthy by spring 2014 so that it can be floated away and salvaged for its scrap metal.

Sloane said that a thorough inspection of the vessel has to be done as it experienced damage when it capsized and as a result of the parbuckling. The work is by no means over albeit the hard part is done. [caption id="attachment_70440" align="alignright" width="300"] The operation, known in nautical parlance as parbuckling, is a proven method to raise capsized vessels. (The Parbuckling Project)
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"We have to do a really detailed inspection of the damage," to determine how to shore it up so it can withstand towing. But Sloane seemed confident: "She was strong enough to come up like this, she's strong enough to be towed."

The ship will have to be sufficiently sea worthy to endure brutal winter seas and strong winds when it sails out of the Giglio harbor.

On The Web:
Shipwrecked Concordia declared vertical off Italy
http://news.yahoo.com/shipwrecked-concordia-declared-vertical-off-italy-022227557.html

Costa Concordia upright in salvage operation off Italian coast
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/costa-concordia-upright-in-salvage-operation-off-italian-coast-1.1855566