Remember that time a massive cruise ship ran into a rock off the coast of Italy, leaving 32 dead in the ensuing confusing and oil all over lovely Tyrrhenian waters? Since wrecking in January 2012, the Costa Concordia has remained where it sunk under Captain Francesco Schettino's command. But it may not stay that way for too much longer: Salvage crews are finally attempted to right the ship in order to tow it off to the scrapyard.
The livestream above is courtesy Reuters, and will hopefully show a slow, successful parbuckling operation in action. Costa Concordia settled on the bottom at about a 70 degree lilt, and part of the $300 million salvage operation requires getting her back upright again. Parbuckling is the process by which a ship is righted using winches and tackle. It's a fascinating use of leverage and simple machines, one made more complicated by the fact that ships occasionally will prefer to slide sideways, rather than rotate, when tugged.
Concordia's initial resting position, via Wikipedia
The effort off the coast of the island of Giglio appears to be going smoothly, despite thunderstorms this morning. The 925-foot, 114,000 ton ship is no trifle, however, and the main concern has been keeping it intact while applying forces structural engineers may not have planned for. One salvage engineer told CNN that he expects the process to be smooth, and you can see already that the ship has been raised a bit. For the sake of the people of Giglio, hopefully the giant wreck will soon be gone.