Captain Nick Sloane is the man who masterminded the refloating of the Costa Condordia earlier this year - the most expensive salvage effort in history. The Italian cruise ship ran aground and capsized in 2012 off the Tuscan island of Giglio and 32 people died. Nick Sloane lived on the island for two years, managing a team of over 500 people, who eventually rolled the enormous ship upright, attaching external flotation tanks in order to refloat it and tow it away to be scrapped. The salvage cost nearly 1 billion dollars.
Nick Sloane is based in South Africa, but travels to marine disasters around the world including New Zealand where he worked for a time on the Rena wreck. He talks to Kathryn Ryan about the project.
Costa Concordia by Soerfm CC BY-SA 3.0