Costa Concordia salvage begins: Will it stay in one piece during righting?

Live coverage (Reuters) : Costa Concordia Salvage Operation Begins

From CNN

Delayed by three hours because of strong thunderstorms, the unprecedented operation of salvaging the massive Costa Concordia cruise began Monday morning off the coast of Italy, near the island of Giglio.

The giant vessel ran aground and tipped over in January 2012, killing 32 of the 4,200 people on board.

Righting the ship could take up to two days, but engineer Sergio Girotto said he's an optimist, expecting the operation to take about 12 hours.

"I don't think we will continue into the night," he said. "After we start pulling, we should see something."

>>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

port of Giglio

The Process

It sounds counterintuitive, but in order to salvage the Costa Concordia, crews will sink portions of it deeper underwater.

The ship will then be pulled off the seabed and rotated onto giant platforms 30 meters below the water level.

Areas of the ship that have been dry for months will be submerged and filled with water.

It's a process known as "parbuckling," and it's become a household term in Giglio, the tiny island that was transformed when the Costa Concordia ran aground off its coast in January 2012.

A ship this large and this heavy -- weighing 114,000 tons -- has never been parbuckled before.

Normally, crews would blow up the ship or take it apart on site.

But officials say that's not an option with the Costa Concordia, because the ship is filled with toxins, and because there are two bodies still believed to be either trapped between the ship and its rocky resting place or somewhere deep in the ship's hollow hull.

What's inside of wrecked cruise ship?

Waiter, passenger still missing

The two missing victims from the cruise ship disaster are Russel Rebello of India, and Maria Grazia Trecarichi of Sicily, Italy.

Rebello, 33, was a cruise waiter who was last seen helping passengers off the ship.

Trecarichi was on the cruise to celebrate her 50th birthday with her 17-year-old daughter, one of thousands of people who survived the deadly shipwreck.

On Monday, her daughter and husband will watch crews try to rotate the ship and, hopefully, find Trecarichi's remains.

Technicians and salvage managers from all over the world will be watching closely to see what goes wrong and what works.

"It will set the new standard for maritime salvage," Giovanni Ceccarelli, the project's engineering manager, told CNN.

Hundreds of people and dozens of companies have collaborated on the preparations, but the parbuckling will come down to 12 people, including the salvage master and specialized technicians, who will be guiding the operation from inside a prefabricated control room set up on a tower on a barge in front of the ship.

The parbucking project

A complex operation

Parbuckling, or righting, the ship could be done in a day or so -- provided the weather conditions agree.
So far, they seem to be, officials said on a website tracking the operation.

It's a major turning point in a salvage operation that has cost the Costa Crociere company, owned by American firm Carnival Cruises, more than $600 million -- so far.

Tall towers anchored onto the rocky shoreline between the ship and the island have been fitted with computer-operated pulley-like wheels.

As the rotation begins, the wheels will guide thick cables and chains pulling the middle third of the ship from under its belly toward Giglio island.

At the same time, more chains and cables attached to hollow boxes that have been welded onto the ship's port side will pull the ship from the top toward the open sea.

After about four to six hours, the pulleys and cables will be rendered useless as gravity takes over and the ship essentially finishes the process, relying on the buoyant boxes alone to control the speed at which it rights itself.

Technicians will pump compressed air into the boxes to control the water levels, which will create buoyancy to slow the ship's rotation until it eventually comes to rest on makeshift "mattresses" put in place on the steel platforms.

If all goes well, the ship will lift off the rocks in one piece and not separate or break apart.
If things go wrong, it could be disastrous.

Has master mariner in charge of salvage met his match?

Toxins, other items onboard

The ship contains a mix of toxins that would be devastating for the environment if leaked into the water, which would happen if the ship breaks apart or sinks.

According to the Costa Concordia's inventory list published in the Italian press and confirmed by Costa, thousands of liters of thick lubricants, paints, insecticides, glue and paint thinners were on board before it set sail three hours before it crashed.

There are also 10 large tanks of oxygen and 3,929 liters of carbon dioxide.

That's not all.

Refrigerators filled with milk, cheese, eggs and vegetables have been closed tight since the disaster.

And the freezers that have not burst under the water pressure are still locked with their rotting thawed contents sealed inside, including 1,268 kilograms of chicken breasts, 8,200 kilograms of beef, 2,460 kilograms of cheese and 6,850 liters of ice cream.

What's next

As the ship rotates, much more water will enter the ship than will spill out, salvage operators say. That fresh seawater will dilute some of the toxic mix, but it will all eventually have to be purified and pumped out before the ship is towed across the sea for dismantling at its final port -- a location that remains to be determined.

In the meantime, the salvage operators have set up two rings of oil booms with absorbent sponges and skirts that extend into the water to catch any debris that may escape.

Once the ship is upright, it will be months before the contents are removed, likely not until it reaches its final port.

At that time, Costa officials say they intend to remove personal effects from the state rooms and return those to each passenger, no matter how soggy the contents might be.

None of that is expected to happen before next summer.

Meanwhile, captain Francesco Schettino, who misguided the ship off course, faces charges of manslaughter, causing a maritime disaster and abandoning ship with passengers still on board.

His trial resumes in Grosseto on September 23.

A guarantee for the nervous cruiser

A turning point

Once the ship is upright, the salvage operation changes dramatically.

A tiny robotic submarine with surveillance cameras will survey the damaged side of the ship and create the models they need to plan for the next phase of operations.

"It will look like a high-impact car accident when it is lifted," Nick Sloane, the salvage master, told CNN. "It won't be pretty."

For days, salvage workers have been running simulations and testing their equipment.

A steady hum of machinery out on the wreckage site could be heard night and day in Giglio harbor.

The ship looks nothing like it did months ago, when it seemed gigantic against the tiny island.

Now giant cranes, barges and generator towers dwarf the wreckage.

Success or failure, no matter what happens on Monday, the Concordia will never again look the same.

5 convicted over deadly shipwreck in Italy

Links :

• BBC : Costa Concordia salvage operation begins 
• Blog GeoGarage

How to update your Admiralty standard nautical charts

How to update your ADMIRALTY Standard Nautical Charts (BA paper charts) using the ADMIRALTY Notices to Mariners service.

This is the entire series of film examples which can be found on the Admiralty YouTube channel, as one 27 minute film.

Notices to Mariners can be downloaded from here:
http://www.ukho.gov.uk/nms

or a searchable service with customised PDF results can be found here:
http://www.ukho.gov.uk/nmwebsearch

Image of the week : the Basque Country corniche

Basque corniche : from Hendaye to Saint Jean de Luz

Pleiades 1A picture (CNES)

Corniche basque

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Baie de Loya

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Drain the oceans

From WhatIf (Randall Munroe)

How quickly would the ocean's drain if a circular portal 10 meters in radius leading into space was created at the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean?

 How would the Earth change as the water is being drained?

–Ted M.

I want to get one thing out of the way first:

According to my rough calculations, if an aircraft carrier sank and got stuck against the drain, the pressure would easily be enough to fold it up[1] and suck it through. Cooool.

Just how far away is this portal?

If we put it near the Earth, the ocean would just fall back down into the atmosphere.

As it fell, it would heat up and turn to steam, which would condense and fall right back into the ocean as rain.

The energy input into the atmosphere alone would also wreak all kinds of havoc with our climate, to say nothing of the huge clouds of high-altitude steam.

So let's put the ocean-dumping portal far away—say, on Mars.

(In fact, I vote we put it directly above the Curiosity rover; that way, it will finally have incontrovertible evidence of liquid water on Mars's surface.)

What happens to the Earth?

Not much.

It would actually take hundreds of thousands of years for the ocean to drain.

Even though the opening is wider than a basketball court, and the water is forced through at incredible speeds,[2] the oceans are huge.

When you started, the water level would drop by less than a centimeter per day.

There wouldn't even be a cool whirlpool at the surface—the opening is too small and the ocean is too deep.[3] 

(It's the same reason you don't get a whirlpool in the bathtub until the water is more than halfway drained.)

But let's suppose we speed up the draining by opening more drains.

(Remember to clean the whale filter every few days), so the water level starts to drop more quickly.

Let's take a look at how the map would change.

Here's how it looks at the start:

And here's the map after the oceans drop 50 meters:

 It's pretty similar, but there are a few small changes. Sri Lanka, New Guinea, Great Britain, Java, and Borneo are now connected to their neighbors.

And after 2000 years of trying to hold back the sea, the Netherlands are finally high and dry.

No longer living with the constant threat of a cataclysmic flood, they're free to turn their energies toward outward expansion.

They immediately spread out and claim the newly-exposed land.

 When the sea level reaches (minus) 100 meters, a huge new island off the coast of Nova Scotia is exposed—the former site of the Grand Banks.

You may start to notice something odd: Not all the seas are shrinking.

The Black Sea, for example, shrinks only a little, then stops.

This is because these bodies are no longer connected to the ocean.

As the water level falls, some basins cut off from the drain in the Pacific.

Depending on the details of the sea floor, the flow of water out of the basin might carve a deeper channel, allowing it to continue to flow out.

But most of them will eventually become landlocked and stop draining.

At 200 meters, the map is starting to look weird.

New islands are appearing.

Indonesia is a big blob.

The Netherlands now control much of Europe.

Japan is now an isthmus connecting the Korean peninsula with Russia.

New Zealand gains new islands. The Netherlands expand north.

New Zealand grows dramatically.

The Arctic Ocean is cut off and its the water level stops falling.

The Netherlands cross the new land bridge into North America.

The sea has dropped by two kilometers.

New islands are popping up left and right.

The Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are losing their connections with the Atlantic.

I don't even know what New Zealand is doing.

At three kilometers, many of the peaks of the mid-ocean ridge—the world's longest mountain range—break the surface.

Vast swaths of rugged new land emerge.

By this point, most of the major oceans have become disconnected and stopped draining.

The exact locations and sizes of the various inland seas are hard to predict; this is only a rough estimate.

This is what the map looks like when the drain finally empties.

There's a surprising amount of water left, although much of it consists of very shallow seas, with a few trenches where the water is as deep as four or five kilometers.

Vacuuming up half the oceans would massively alter the climate and ecosystems in ways that are hard to predict.

At the very least, it would almost certainly involve a collapse of the biosphere and mass extinctions at every level.

But it's possible—if unlikely—that humans could manage to survive.

If we did, we'd have this to look forward to:

Oblique icebreaker gives better access to Arctic waters

 Melting polar ice is making Arctic waters navigable for more of the year

 From BBC

Icebreakers trawl the world's frozen seas, cutting a path for other ships in the harsh Arctic winter. Now, a new kind of ship that can drift sideways could make traffic - and trade - easier.

Could the maritime technology change life in the extreme north?

Traditional icebreakers use their weight, size and power to bulldoze crusts of ice as much as 3m (10ft) thick when the sea freezes over.
In its wake, this special class of ship leaves a narrow, open lane along which other vessels can follow.

In recent years Arctic ship traffic has been rising dramatically, while cargo and crude oil carriers have become bigger and bigger.
Often, two icebreakers as well as supporting vessels are required to open a route wide enough for these ships to pass through.
But a new kind of icebreaker under construction in Helsinki, Finland, has the potential to change the way shipping operates in the frozen north.

 The ship's hull, here being lowered into place, is the first asymmetrical design for an icebreaker

The left side of the hull is reinforced for icebreaking and the right is designed to clean up oil spills

The big uncertainty with the Northern Sea Route is weather conditions and sea ice conditions” Prof Klaus Dodds Royal Holloway University of London

NB 508

When it is finished, the NB 508 will be based in the Russian port of St Petersburg

Experts say the sight of the vessel with the Russian flag on the funnel is symbolically important in the rush to open Arctic sea routes for shipping

The Oblique Icebreaker NB 508, made by the Arctic ship builder Arctech, will become the first of its kind to travel sideways through the ice rather than pound it head-on, cutting a channel as much as 30% wider than conventional icebreakers can manage.
The 76m euro (£65m) ship has been designed with an asymmetrical hull that inclines steeply and is heavily reinforced on its left side, to bear the brunt of the icebreaking.
Although the ship can go faster in open water or while icebreaking head-on, when moving sideways it will creep forward at a speed of just 2 knots (2.3mph), and can only tackle thinner ice of up to 0.6m (23.6in) depth.
But experts say the ship's ability to cut a path of 164ft (50m) outweighs those factors.

'Unpredictable weather'

Prof Klaus Dodds of Royal Holloway University of London says: "Any talk about wider pathways is of huge interest to the Russian Ministry of Transport," for whom the NB 508 is being built.

Maritime traffic is taking off in Russia's strategic Northern Sea Route.
Forty-three vessels sailed that route in 2012, up from just three or four in 2010.
Analysts expect commercial activity to grow further, as melting polar ice makes the sea navigable for more of the year.
Russia charges transit fees to ships moving in its Arctic waters and requires that every ship is accompanied by one of its icebreakers.

But the icebreakers in its fleet are becoming old and many are too small for larger ships and tankers.
The new icebreaker technology is likely to be marketed to energy companies as a boost for shipping and drilling, since most of the ships using that route carry liquefied natural gas (LNG) or crude oil to East Asian markets.

But Prof Dodds says: "The big uncertainty with the Northern Sea Route - as with anywhere in the Arctic - is weather conditions and sea ice conditions, which can change quickly.
"The thing that is of huge concern with the Northern Sea Route - and this of course affects insurance premiums - is the capacity of search and rescue. How do you deal with an emergency?" he adds.

In the Arctic, the sparse population living in tiny communities across huge distances means it can be hard to relieve a ship in distress.
In addition, there are fears over how to cope with an environmental disaster.

The NB 508 is being built as an emergency and rescue vessel that can also clean up oil spills.
At the heart of the boat's design are three rotating "azimuth" propulsors that can turn 360 degrees placed asymmetrically along the ship's keel, with two propulsion units at the back and one at the front to give the icebreaker a high degree of manoeuvrability.

 'Intense navigation'

"Collecting oil is basically done by the right-hand side of the ship," says Mika Willberg, project manager for Arctech.
"There is an open hatch and you guide the water - the oily water - inside to an integrated skimmer system."

There is a need for more infrastructure in the Arctic, that's for sure” Craig Eason Lloyd's List

The right side of the 76m-long vessel, with a deadweight of 1,150 tonnes, will move like an arm to sweep up the oily water, Mr Willberg says.
Once inside the tank, the water and oil will be separated by brushes fitted to the inside, and the ship is able to work on cleaning up oily water even in harsh weather conditions.
"The vessel going sideways to collect oil is a new function," he adds.

Craig Eason, technical editor of shipping industry journal Lloyds List, who spent 10 days on board an ice class tanker, says: "Navigating through ice is particularly intense."
"What the crew are doing is to look intensely at the ice, trying to find a passage through it to see which way is the best way to go," he adds.
"See which way it's drifting, see whether there might be a fault in the ice that they could push the vessel through, looking at the ice maps, looking at the ice radar and just doing this intense assessment."

Icebreakers trawl the world's frozen seas, cutting a path for other ships in the harsh Arctic winter. Now, a new kind of ship that can drift sideways could make traffic - and trade - easier.

Large cruise ships (like the Freedom of the Seas in the picture)

need as many as five supporting vessels to move in icy water

The NB 508 will also have two control centres - for operating in conventional and oblique mode.
The NB 508 can also undertake firefighting, towing and rescue operations.

The Arctech project manager says the concept for the oblique icebreakers was born 15 years ago when the ship builder, formerly called Aker Arctic, held an internal competition for a new idea.
The winning concept was an "oblique mode", which turned into a patent in 1997.
"They saw possibility in that," Mr Willberg says.
"The company made some tests with normal icebreakers, eventually developing the whole form of the vessel."
Different versions of the vessel were put together over the years, but Mr Willberg says the design never sold, perhaps "some of the customers were a little suspicious" of whether it could actually be pulled off.

But even though the NB 508 is due to be delivered to the Russians in early 2014, there are obstacles to reproducing the design for wider use.
From its home port of St Petersburg, the NB 508 is designed to operate in the icy waters of the Baltic Sea's Gulf of Finland.
"With that in mind it will have a certain limit on its fuel capacity, so taking it further afield could be problematic in terms of its range," says Mr Eason.
"But there is a need for more infrastructure in the Arctic, that's for sure."

Links :

• GeoGarage blog :  SCF Baltica tanker completed the Northern Sea Route / Arctic sea routes open as ice melts / Gas tanker Ob River attempts first winter Arctic crossing / Arctic mapping to make navigating Northwest Passage safer / Ships to sail directly over the north pole by 2050, scientists say / Map room: Borders on top of the world
• BusinessInsider : Russia Intensifies Control Over Northern Sea Route Shipping, But Suez May Still Win
• TheArcticInstitute : The Myth of Arctic Shipping - Why the Northern Sea Route is Still of Limited Geo-Economic Importance
• TheGuardian : China's voyage of discovery to cross the less frozen north