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The wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship was successfully righted today after an unprecedented 19-hour operation off the Italian island of Giglio where the cruise liner has been lying on its side since it capsized 20 months ago, killing 32 passengers. Video via AP.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/the-19-hour-raise-of-costa-concordia-in-2-minutes-jhfF9vWNRuGEl91B1BKumg.html

I know some people were still missing, hope they don't find them in the cabins.

Oh that is impressive, he is one of our boys , didn't know that.  (Stunning pics)

Nicholas Sloane, 51, a red-haired, freckled South African with hands like bear paws, is steering the rubber boat around the wreck. Before him looms the gaping gash in the large hull, many meters long, where part of the rock that caused the shipwreck was still embedded until recently. Above him, workers are hovering in a steel cage suspended from the swivel arm of a floating crane. He jokingly shouts to welders who are hanging against the sloping wall of the bow like mountain climbers.

Sloane is the senior salvage master for the Costa Concordia. He studied nautical science, and with his master's certificate he could command a luxury ocean liner like the Queen Mary 2 or a supertanker, but that kind of career has never interested him. Sloane doesn't steer ships -- he gets rid of them. For the past three decades, he has been working as a clean-up man on the world's oceans, raising sunken oil rigs and cutting up ships underwater. But his job on Giglio Island is to return the wreck to an upright position and tow it to a mainland harbor -- in the best possible condition and ideally still in one piece.

Full story:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/how-the-costa-concordia-will-be-salvaged-a-857683.html

Edit:

What an inspirational man. Sorry, I'm usually not easily impressed and he's old but something about this guy's conduct grabs me:

The phone call from Florida-based company Titan Salvage reached Sloane while he was removing a freighter from a reef in New Zealand. He had never heard of Giglio, the so-called enchanted lily island, located between Elba, Montecristo and the coast of Tuscany. He thought of Italian red wine, pinot noir, which he highly appreciates. He called his wife and asked her if she wanted to meet up in "good old Europe." Forget it, his wife said. She had seen the horrific images from Giglio on TV. A few weeks ago, though, she changed her mind and visited him with their three children.

Sloane speaks tenderly and lewdly about the ship, like an old sea dog referring to his lover. He describes how he intends to bed her on a cement mattress -- how he plans to dress her in nappies, attaching floating pontoons to her flanks. His work uniform, a white polo shirt, is emblazoned with the mission's motto: "Determination & Love."[/i]

...and

Blowing it up with dynamite is another solution. Sloane is an expert at doing that. He opens a folder on his laptop that he named "Blow Jobs" and shows films of stranded ships that collapse like high-rise buildings. "Blow jobs are always an option," says Sloane with a grin, "but not for Giglio."