Costa Concordia and her final resting place

In January 2012 the cruising industry was rocked by the news of a sunken cruise liner off the coast of Tuscany, every cruising fanatics worst nightmare. Costing £372 million to build the Costa Concordia was a beautiful modern cruise ship carrying 4200 passengers when the unthinkable and completely avoidable happened, sailing dangerously close to the island of Giglio she struck an undetected rock which caused catastrophic damage to the hull. The engines filled with water, power was lost and the ship began to list before finally coming to a rest on the rocky sea bed partly submerged 20 metres beneath the waves.

Thanks to the actions of Captain Schettino who not only caused the accident but abandoned ship with most of his passengers and crew still on board, 32 people tragically lost their lives. Schettino reportedly ordered the ship be steered closer to the island as a ‘salute’ and has since been charged with multiple counts of manslaughter aswell as abandoning ship. He has yet to see the insides of a prison cell much to the dismay of the families who lost loved ones and the survivors who hold him solely responsible not only for the sinking itself but also the bodged evacuation which he didn’t even bother to see through.

In April 2013 the pain staking task to refloat the Concordia began. She was supported below the waters surface by a purpose built steel platform to prevent her from sinking further and metal boxes were fitted to her sides and filled with air to create buoyancy. Finally in July 2014 she was afloat and was carefully towed back to her home port of Genoa for scrapping which has taken 2 years to complete. It has been reported that 70% of the Concordia will be recycled bringing the salvage and scrappage costs to an estimated £1.2 billion making it one of the most expensive maritime wrecks in history.

Since the Concordia came to her untimely end the cruising industry has worked tirelessly to tighten up on protocol and safety procedures to ensure such an incident doesnt happen again. The muster drills are now much more thorough, exit routes are clearer with the gangways being iluminated if needed and muster stations easily accessible for the staterooms assigned to it. We conducted a poll last year in which 73% of you agreed that cruising felt much safer since the Concordia disaster. Would you agree with that or are there still things you would like to see improved?

You can read more about the Costa Concordia tragedy here: http://www.cruise.co.uk/news/the-definitive-guide-to-the-costa-concordia-tragedy/?affref=isabellel