As part of the salvage plan to remove the wreck of the Costa Concordia, Italian shipbuilding group Fincantieri has been awarded a contract to build the watertight caissons required to refloat the stricken ship.
A total of 30 steel caissons, with combined weight of 11 500t, will be built in different Fincantieri shipyards.
Once the ship has been stabilized, caissons will be fixed to the upper side of the hull and gradually filled with water as part of the operation to right the ship; righting will be performed using a system of ‘strand jacks’ – a hydraulic mechanism for pulling cables – fixed to an undersea platform. When the ship is upright, caissons full of water will also be fixed to the other side of the hull. Then the caissons on both sides will be emptied to refloat the wreck; once floated, the wreck will be towed to an Italian port.
Meanwhile, preliminary work to prepare the wreck for salvage is proceeding on schedule. Titan-Micoperi, the Italo-American consortium appointed by Costa Crociere to remove the vessel, is currently removing some external parts of the ship, such as OVI SAT antenna, forward masthead light, water slide, in order to facilitate the next stage of the plan, the ship stabilisation phase.