Righting Costa Concordia

摘要

It is possibly one of the best-known passenger cruise liners in recent history, for all the wrong reasons. On 13 January 2012, Costa Concordia left the Italian port of Civitavecchia with 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew on board. Thirty minutes later, after deviating from its intended course, it struck a submerged reef, resulting in the loss of 32 lives and leaving the vessel partially submerged and lying precariously on its port side on a sloping rock shelf off the island of Giglio. The enormity of what the salvage companies face in attempting this recovery is almost beyond comprehension. What makes it even more unbelievable is it is a one-shot salvage scheduled to conclude in September. If anything goes wrong during the righting operation, there is no second chance. As Solutions went to press, the ongoing process demonstrated cutting-edge innovation and panache in technical engineering.