The Costa Concordia arrived in Italy’s Voltri port, Genoa, on Sunday afternoon, 27 July, where it will now be scrapped, just a stone’s throw from the shipbuilding yard where it was built less than a decade ago.
The stricken vessel, wrecked two and a half years ago off the Italian island of Giglio, lay on its side until September 2013 when an operation to right the ship, headed by South African salvage expert Nick Sloane, was carried out.
It was refloated earlier in July and on Wednesday 23 July, buoyed by flotation chambers and towed by tugboats, the ship began its final 200-nautical-mile voyage from Giglio to the Genoan scrapyard, at a speed of approximately two knots an hour.
It is estimated that the scrapping process will take around 22 months at a cost of €100 million.