Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy

Are you joking? Have you been following the story? They hit a submerged rock about 300 meters offshore and tried to continue on. Within minutes they realized the ship was going down and the captain turned the ship back to shore to beach it. Turning around was probably the only commendable thing he did that night.

It doesn't get "solid" at the kind of temperatures that ship is in. They use an Intermediate Fuel Oil" that is about the same viscosity as engine lube oil. It is heated to obtain the same viscosity as diesel oil so it can be used in the same injection system.

There appears to be a question mark over whether the ship had propulsion at the point at which she 'turned' and returned to shore. Time and the data recorder will tell.

As Marmot points out, bunker oil is fluid, even though it usually looks like sludge. There is a serious risk that the tanks will rupture when the ship is moved - hence the need to pump her out.

Aaah, well, there goes the Captains extremely weak defense then. It appears maybe he did nothing right from the time he resumed command of the bridge after having, alleged, wine with Ms. Cemortan.

I found this interesting in detail analysis of the last minutes of the Costa Concordia prior to coming to rest on Giglio (hope this is ok to post):

Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad on Vimeo

Hi,

Pretty interesting display.

I wonder when the real data from the VDR will be made public.

I suspect that will depend on Italian law. It is likely that both the defense and the prosecution will want to keep vital data secret so as not to influence or prejudice the outcome of the trial.

Yes, the video isn´t exactly right up to the grounding. Another confusing thing is if and when the captain used an anchor? Some are saying before the grounding and other say he used it to finally turn the boat around pointing to the port entrance. Or maybe not at all.

It is also said that it was about twenty people on the bridge just after they hit the rock, before it finally stranded. So it must be a lot more information coming out sooner or later.

Google Earth Animation of Concordia tragedy: An amazing 3D tour of the Costa Concordia | Google Earth Blog

Pretty well done, but still not correct I think. All of these animations are based on assumptions one company have posted on the net, not AIS information.

VDR was broke..

What !!!!

Probably the most reliable piece of equipment on the planet, with 'fail safe', solid state, multichannel recording, cocooned in a virtually indestructible carcass?

How did that happen? Or shouldn't we ask?

Maybe I was a bit hasty there.

Been reading some marine accident cases and it does seem that VDRs have not been quite as reliable as they could be!

Mind you, it appears that the Concordia’s captain was aware that his ship’s VDR had not been working for a couple of weeks before the incident. If she was an aircraft, a faulty data recorder would have been swapped out immediately.

Perhaps this will prompt a change in maritime law / procedure.

Based on reports I've read, it may take a year or more to remove the ship. I don't think the decision has been made yet on whether to try to refloat her or cut her up as scrap. Either way, it will take quite a bit of time.

That would make one big mess cutting her up.

No doubt about that. Weather forced a delay in the operation to remove the fuel and other liquids. Even that will take a month or so.

Given the currents and the size of the ship I believe the are looking at several big messes over the course of months.

Hi,

Would you care to share your tidal data and current forecast for the Island of Giglio that enables you to make such a statement?

I haven't exactly got a chart in front of me but the western med. has a general current running clockwise through it, in the spring the currents tend to churn up against the west coast of Italy (and carry nutrients up, which is part of what made the sea so bountiful there) because it's shallow enough to heat the whole water column and build a temperature differential against the relatively cool winter med. water. The island is far enough off the coast that it's going to be catching those currents. Had it happened 6 months earlier their is a gyre that forms just to the south of the area (can't for the life of me remember the name of it) that would present a holding pattern for the debris but instead it will be carried to the relatively shallow and uniform terrain to the north, if typical med. surface patterns hold. this will give the mess lots of time to spread out.

Because it's a cruise ship it's got materials of different density. It's probably got lots of pressboard which won't hold together well but will float to an extent after it's cut up. the metal of course will sink and be relatively containable, but the real worrisome items are things like the carpet, things that are near neutral buoyancy and can ride the slightly faster subsurface currents that are less northerly and more significantly westerly. Some of it will probably churn up on Crete but most of it will probably hit the South of France. The densest stuff (which doesn't really matter much) will be pulled south down with the cooler waters moving to the deeper portions of the sea.

If they do cut it up it's going to be a monumentally long process of cutting (I believe that a chain is the tool of choice) which means that debris will be kicked out for a few days as they work their way through. Then because of the precarious position they will surely have to stop cutting while they hoist out and remove the portion that they have cut away this is another several days (to weeks) time period as I understand it, because it's a huge ship. The currents are moving between 2 knot and 6 depending on the weather and the density of the object if you give it 2 weeks in between periods of cutting (which is stingy I'd imagine) that's between 800 and 2400 statutory miles, it's not going to stay in the water for that long, it will be washed up on shore before the next batch is released. It's slower for surface debris because of the water air interface but just subsurface debris will hit Monaco in about two days.

Ergo several big messes.