The parbuckling is complete

The BBC have a nice page: Costa Concordia: Stricken ship set upright in Italy, with a nifty time-lapse video.

It looks like there was definitely a point about 3/4 of the way through where the righting appeared to accelerate, but then was somehow brought back under control. Must have been very exciting during those moments.

Some great pictures down at the end of the article, including an amazing long-range shot showing the enormous compression damage along the side of the ship where the cabins were resting on the rocks.

Officials now plan to fully inspect the vessel and begin to prepare the next stage - the effort to repair and refloat it and eventually tow it away to be destroyed.

"It's not over yet," said salvage master Mr Sloane.

The overall plan is interesting: basically they're going to construct an enormous sea-worthy barge around the wreckage, then attempt to float the entire thing as a unit and tow it.

According to this page: Salvaging the Costa Concordia, the refloatation won't even be attempted until late next spring.

With the ship considered a write-off, its final destination is expected to be a dry dock in Sicily, where it will be cut up.

Why Sicily? My knowledge of the Mediterranean is weak, but it seems like that's a voyage of about 300 miles, which seems like a long, long ways. I assume the destination is Palermo or maybe Messina, but aren't there places like Livorno or even Rome which are much closer?

Well, anyway, I'm glad that the parbuckling was a success, and I hope that the rest of the operation is uneventful.