Costa Concordia Heads for Scrapping Today

zoom The stripped Costa Concordia wreck will begin manoeuvres to exit the port of Pra’ Voltri today at 4 pm, its final destination being the Port of Genoa where it will be dismantled. The transfer has been authorized by the local authorities following the first stage of the wrecks dismantling project that saw over 5,700 tons of materials removed from the ship, the Ship Recycling Consortium said. The approval was also dependent on weather and sea conditions, however, different weather forecasting services involved in the project have identified the best weather window this week. The material was removed so the wreck could attain the necessary draft for its 10-mile transfer, which is expected to take over 24 hours to complete. The wrecks final journey will include exit manouvres from the Prà Voltri breakwater, navigation – expected to last about 11 hours  – and the entrance manouvres in the ex Superbacino area of the Genoa Port. The video shows some of the key highlights of the dismantling process:

 Costa Concordia sank in January 2012 killing 32 people. The grounding of the cruise ship, carrying 4,252 people at the time, is believed to had been caused by the captain’s recklessness, as the ship came too close to the Giglio island where it got stuck and later collapsed. World Maritime News Staff