Tag Archives: costa cruises

Costa Concordia refloating scheduled to happen in June

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By Tom Stieghorst

Concordia wreckItalian authorities and Costa Cruises executives held a briefing in Italy updating the progress on refloating the Costa Concordia.

The update comes a few days before the second anniversary of the partial sinking of the Costa ship.

Engineers pulled the Concordia upright last fall and are preparing to refloat the ship before towing it to port to be scrapped.

Project managers are targeting June to move the wreck from Giglio Island to an as-yet-unknown destination. Prior to that, they will attach another 19 sponsons to the hull.

The plan calls for sponsons to be fastened to the ship in April. Then water will be pumped out of the tank-like sponsons, providing buoyancy to raise the ship off its fabricated platform about 30 meters below the surface to a depth of about 18.5 meters.

A total of 2042.5 cubic meters of fuel and 240 cubic meters of sewage were removed from the ship last March, along with 240 tons of material from the seabed, according to the project briefing materials.

Authorities initially contacted 30 salvage companies and are in the process of picking one. The field has been winnowed to companies from Italy, France, Norway, the U.K. and Turkey, with final selection expected in early March.

The project has a $30 million option to retain the Dockwise Vanguard, the world’s largest semi-submersible vessel, as an alternative for transporting Concordia.

About 60% of the direct spending on the recovery (about 261 million euros) has benefited Italy, with another 21% of the benefits flowing to the U.S., 12% to the U.K., 3.8% to the Netherlands and 2.6% to Germany, the project said.

It estimated the overall impact on Italy’s GDP at 540 million euros.

Costa to market boutique cruising under new brand

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Costa to market boutique cruising under new brand

By Tom Stieghorst
Costa Cruises said two of its older, smaller ships will offer a new style of cruising and be marketed under the NeoCollection brand.

The ships, the NeoRomantica and NeoRiviera, will do longer, more leisurely itineraries with plenty of time in port in what Costa has labeled “slow cruising.” There will be an emphasis on locally sourced food and custom shore excursions.

Many of the itineraries are exclusive to the NeoCollection ships, which can go to smaller ports less accessible to Costa’s bigger vessels.

For example, The “Mediterranean Heart” itinerary departs Savona and calls at Toulon, France; Salerno and Livorno, Italy; Valletta, Malta; Porto Empedocle, Sicily, and concludes with an overnight call at Barcelona.

At 1,248 passengers (NeoRiviera) and 1,578 passengers (NeoRomantica), the two NeoCollection ships are among the smallest in Costa’s fleet.

Shore excursions for groups of 25 or fewer guests have been designed to highlight cultural and natural attractions in each destination.

New menus developed in collaboration with Università delle Scienze Gastronomiche in Pollenza, Italy, feature authentic cuisine that incorporates local food and wines.

Charges of evidence tampering filed in Concordia shipwreck

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Charges of evidence tampering filed in Concordia shipwreck

Official press release.

(ANSA) – Grosseto, October 7 – Italian consumer group Codacons announced on Monday it filed charges of evidence manipulation in the Costa Concordia shipwreck probe and delivered the complaint to prosecutors in the Tuscan city of Grosseto.

The trial resumed on Monday of ex-captain Francesco Schettino who was in command of the giant cruiser when it smashed into a rock formation on Giglio Island off the Tuscan coast, on January 13, 2012, causing one of Italy’s largest maritime disasters.

Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter and dereliction of duty for his role in the shipwreck that killed 32, forced the evacuation of thousands onboard, and caused massive economic damage to Costa Cruises and to Giglio Island, a popular Tuscan tourist destination where the massive ship crashed.

Codacons’ charges concern maintenance records that Costa Cruises delivered to experts during their appraisal of the evidence. ”Specifically, it concerns files related to compulsory tests for the emergency generator, to be performed weekly,” Codacons announced in a note.

”Precisely those related to 10 weeks before the accident – were modified two months after the accident, on March 13, 2012,” Codacons continued. Codacons complained that the values were changed ”all at the same time, in other words within a few dozen seconds, moreover with the insertion of identical values, such as for the temperature of the water and the temperature of the oil”.

”Malfunctioning of the emergency generator (was) a possible cause or secondary cause of the tragic epilogue of the shipwreck in terms of human lives, and is one of the main aspects that Codacons has been fighting from the beginning of the trial, and evidently it is not by chance that the alterations of the data concern precisely that front,” Codacons claimed.

The consumer group called on the Grosseto prosecutor’s office to open an urgent investigation into related facts and relative responsibilities, as well as called for the immediate seizure of documentation