Costa Crociere's CEO Thanks Salvage Firms
The successful uprighting of the stranded ship has made history.
CEO Michael Thamm of Costa Crociere SpA, owner of the Costa Concordia, issued a statement Sept. 18 thanking the Titan Salvage-Micoperi salvage team for successfully righting the Costa Concordia cruise ship this week, after months of careful preparation to parbuckle the ship. Other ships, including the battleship Oklahoma after it was sunk in Pearl Harbor, have been successfully parbuckled, but this operation is considered the largest ever accomplished.
A personal thanks to each of you, five hundred men and women of the consortium Titan Micoperi, who with ingenuity, commitment and enormous passion have allowed for the removal of Concordia from the island of Giglio. The delicate and complex stage of work in this unprecendented project in naval history required, in addition to a huge technological effort, the invention of a new way of thinking. Thank you from the heart," Thamm said.
The remaining tasks to remove the ship from the area also may take months. The gash in its hull must be repaired, and the ship will then be towed to a shipyard for demolition.