Yesterday we were amazed to learn that the plan for the Costa Concordia shipwreck is to load her onto Dockwise’s Type-O semi-submersible heavy lift ship, Dockwise Vanguard, and carry her, literally, away from Giglio.

For those of you who have never seen Dockwise Vanguard in action, and even for those of you who have, it’s difficult to comprehend how the float-on is going to go down. So here’s an animation of the operation from Boskalis:

As we reported yesterday, the float-on is expected to take place in mid-2014 once the winter weather subsides and the wreck is prepped with starboard-sponsons and refloated.

Here are some more photos of Dockwise Vanguard in action:

The Dockwise Vanguard’s first cargo, the Jack/St. Malo semisubmersible. Image (c) 2013 Dockwise

Image (c) 2013 Dockwise

Image (c) 2013 Dockwis