Costa Concordia's Final Journey

[Corfe Mixture]

As of 1840 UT, 48 nautical miles (88Km) to go, but only making 1.9 knots after changing course, to head for a point just south of Genoa, about three hours ago.

 

Seems to have slowed down, probably to avoid arriving after dark tomorrow night, and it looks like she will arrive off Genoa Sunday morning. AIS transmission still showing ETA 1200 UT Sunday (1400 Local time), but as I said earlier, this is manually entered data.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Corfe Mixture

[Woobstr112G]

Costa Concordia's final journey is under way.

 

http://www.giglionews.it/2010/02/24/webcam-giglio-porto-panoramica/

 

A sad ending for a once proud ship.....:):):)

 

Bon

Edited July 25, 2014 by Woobstr112G

[Corfe Mixture]

0800 UT Saturday:

 

26nautical miles (50km) to go to Genoa, but now going very slowly with speed at times falling below 1knot.

 

PRESS RELEASE ISSUED YESTERDAY (Friday 25th July):

 

'There are still about 60 nautical miles to reach Genoa Prà-Voltri and, after 2 days of navigation, the Concordia is now about 20 miles West from La Spezia. At the moment, the convoy has an average speed of about 1.7 knots which could be further slowed down in the next hours in order to allow the arrival in front of the port between Saturday night and Sunday morning, as per plan. The entrance in the port will be on Sunday morning, July 27th.

 

Today weather and sea conditions have been good, with calm sea and light wind from the south. A worsening of weather conditions is forecasted for tonight, with local rains in Liguria until tomorrow at noon. Weather conditions will improve in the afternoon to then become stable from the evening and on Sunday.'

Edited July 26, 2014 by Corfe Mixture
Added Press Release

[azbirdmom]

The journey is almost over.

 

http://video.repubblica.it/dossier/c...62?ref=HRER3-1

[Colo Cruiser]

Thats amazing, looks like a live feed as it arrives in Genoa.

[azbirdmom]

This one isn't as sharp.

 

http://www.giglionews.it/2014/07/26/...ia-refloating/

 

Wish there was an English option on these sites!

[Corfe Mixture]

She is on the move again, having been stationary off the port whilst they made the final preparations to secure her to the mooring in the port.

 

She will be moored in the container port where the fisrt part of the dismantling operation will take place. This is because her current draft of 18m is far too much to get into any of the dry docks. Also the sponsons make her much too wide for any of the dry docks.

 

Apparently what will happen is that she will be partly dismantled in to container port, in order to make her much lighter and reduce her draft. I think they will also try to make repairs to the hole so that they can pump out the water, and get her to float in her own right, so that they can remove the sponsons and take her into a dry dock for the final part of the operation.

 

The whole process will take up to two years, though they do not say how long the initial phase, in the container port, will take.

 

Still some time to go before she becomes Mazdas and washing machines.

[Corfe Mixture]

0950 UT

 

Now safely behind the harbour breakwater having passed the tow to the port tugs.

 

Not quite sure where they will put her.

 

The obvious place is the South Quay as that is where the heavy cranes are located, but there are already two ships on that quay

a 294m long Liberian Container ship named a Virginia

and

a 188m long Italian Container ship named Giorgia

which could make it a bit tight, though I cannot tell where the spaces are are as I do not have orientation information for the Virginia, just spot location of her AIS transponder:

 

There is an smaller ship on the East Quay, but I don't think they have any heavy lifting capablitiy on that quay and there is no way sthey could get Concordia around the corner to the north Quay, which in any event does not have sufficient depth to take her in her current condition.

 

So it looks as though, if Virginia is bow to the west, she will moor to the west of Virginia, which is a bit of a tight corner to get her into with just tugs, or if Virginia is moored bow to the east then in the 500m gap between Virginia and Giorgia.

 

No doubt we will soon find out

[Corfe Mixture]

According to the BBC, she is going to a specially constructed wharf.

[USNUZULOOSE]

They have a live webcam for where she is in Genoa.

[USNUZULOOSE]

If you look under Costa forum area there are screen shots of here being towed into the spot.

[Astro Flyer]

Here's a link to the Concordia's journey and it's good to know that the two-year dismantling will result in about 80% of the materials being recycled.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/27/world/europe/costa-concordia-salvage/index.html