WorldWide Drilling Resource

47 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® NOVEMBER 2013 Water-Powered Drilling and the Costa Concordia Compiled by Amy White, Associate Editor WorldWide Drilling Resource ® January 13, 2012, was a night the world will not soon forget. On this night, the cruise ship Costa Concordia made its final voyage before running aground off the pristine Tuscan island of Giglio. The shipwreck killed 32 people and left hundreds of others injured. The captain of the ship now faces manslaughter charges. In the months since the devastat- ing debacle, a 450-strong team of the world’s best salvage technicians has worked painstakingly to prise the crip- pled ship from its half-submerged rest- ing place, with the goal of refloating it sometime next year so it can be towed to a shipyard for demolition. The first phase of the operation involved stabilizing the wreck with an anchoring system fixed to the sea bot- tom between the center of the wreck and the coast. This was to prevent any slipping or further sinking of the ship along the steep seabed. The second stage involved prepa- ration of a false bottom for the wrecked ship to rest upon after being rotated to a vertical position. This was a delicate process since the wreckage was locat- ed in a marine national park and popu- lar tourist destination in Italy. Therefore, major focus was set to minimize any environmental impact. Environment-friendly, water-pow- ered drilling technology was chosen for the salvage project. Since this drilling method does not use any oil to lubri- cate the hammer, there was no risk of pollution in the borehole. High-pres- sure water is also incompressible and loses its power after leaving the drill bit, much like a garden hose. This minimized the risk of causing damage to sea forma- tions below. Ten platforms were installed on the bedrock beneath the wreckage by drilling twelve 50-foot-deep holes and installing anchors grouted firmly in the rock. Several wires were then connected to these plat- forms and under the ship to the port side as a counter hold. Salvage teams drilled 26 holes in the granite seabed in which to place 6- foot-wide pillars to support the special- ly-designed platforms. This created an area onto which the ship could be rolled without fracturing under its own weight. Shortly after 4 a.m. on September 17, 2013, a foghorn blared off Giglio Trevi drilling vessel at work on the Costa Concordia salvage project. Photo courtesy of wassara.com Island and the head of Italy’s Civi l Protection Agency, Franco Gabrielli announced the Costa Concordia had reached a vertical position, and the oper- ation to rotate it - known as parbuck- ling - was complete. It was a moment of pride for engineers, divers, dri l l ing professionals, and other salvage tech- nicians who worked around the clock on the unprecedented $827 mi l l ion project. The Costa Concordia is twice as heavy as the Titanic, and is the largest- ever passenger shipwreck by tonnage in history. Water-Powered trans. cont’d on page 48.