Starling Travel

December 5, 2012

Costa Concordia: Still A Wreck After Almost A Year

Filed under: Cruises,Travel — Laura Moncur @ 10:37 am

Costa Concordia SinkingLast January, the first cruise ship to sink in a century was capsized off the coast of Isla del Giglio. It was the Costa Concordia and I talked about it here:

Back then, I said:

My first cruise was on a ship with broken stabilizers, so every other cruise has felt smooth as glass. During that bumpy and lilting first cruise, I kept reassuring myself that we could not possibly sink because the last ship to sink was the Titanic. I had convinced myself that it was impossible for the modern cruise ships to sink. Then I heard about the Costa Concordia sinking just off the coast of Italy last night and all my fears resurfaced.

It has been almost a year since that wreck and the boat is STILL there. Its salvage has proved to be quite a difficult problem.

The disaster, which killed 32 people, left salvage teams facing the unprecedented challenge of removing a ship with a gross tonnage of 114,500 GT without spilling its rotting contents into the sea.

The ship has been sitting there so long that you can now see it on Google Maps:

Costa Concordia Sattelite Image

The lawyers for the captain of the Costa Concordia, who is said to have abandoned ship, is placing the blame for the wreck on Carnival and their policies. Here is a news clip from October when they talked about his pre-trial hearing.

Here is another clip highlighting how difficult it has been for their passengers, seeking retribution.

All of this has made me feel less willing to go on a cruise. I think I’ll stick with epic road trips across the U.S.A. and not give our money away to Carnival.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

-

Powered by WordPress
(c) 2005-2017 Michael Moncur, Laura Moncur, and Starling Studios