The Costa Concordia ship lies on its side on the Tuscan Island of Giglio, Italy, on Monday. In an unprecedented maritime salvage operation, engineers on Monday gingerly wrestled the hull of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia off the Italian reef where the cruise ship has been stuck since January 2012. But progress was much slower than predicted and the delicate operation to rotate the luxury liner from its capsized position to upright appeared likely to stretch into Tuesday. Never before has such an enormous cruise ship been righted, and the crippled Concordia didn’t budge for the first three hours after the operation began, engineer Sergio Girotto told reporters.GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy – Engineers declared success on Tuesday as the Costa Concordia cruise ship was pulled completely upright during a complicated, 19-hour operation to wrench it from its side where it capsized last year off Tuscany, an unprecedented feat that sets the stage for it to be towed away next year.
The submerged side of the Concordia suffered significant damage during 20 months bearing the weight of the ship and the operation to right it, officials said. That damage must be repaired to stabilize the ship so it can be towed and turned into scrap.
Shortly after 4 a.m., a foghorn wailed off Giglio Island and the head of Italy’s Civil Protection agency, Franco Gabrielli, announced that the ship had reached vertical and that the operation to rotate it – known in nautical terms as parbuckling – was complete.
“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.