Salvaging Conte di Cavour: The Breakout Lift From a 56-Foot Mud Grave

#Cavour #Shipwreck #MaritimeHistory #ShipSalvage #Cofferdam
Cavour is the battleship the seabed tried to keep forever—buried in Taranto’s clay at 56 feet after a single aerial torpedo opened a massive bilge wound. What followed wasn’t a simple refloat. It was a full ship salvage operation where mud suction and “breakout force” could double or triple the load, threatening snapped cables or buckled hull girders.

This documentary rebuilds how the Tripcovich salvage team, backed by naval architect Umberto Pugliese, had to subtract mass before they could add buoyancy. Cavour was stripped toward the waterline: funnels, towers, and heavy artillery removed to lower the center of gravity, protect metacentric height, and reduce bending stress on a hull some feared might already be weakened. Then came the invisible killer inside the wreck: free surface effect—shifting water in partially pumped compartments that can erase stability in seconds. Pumps weren’t “on/off.” They had to drain specific tanks in a strict sequence.

But none of it mattered until the sea was stopped at the source. The hull breach—about 40 feet by 26 feet—was buried in mud, so the engineers built a giant cofferdam patch and used external water pressure to seal it tight. With the breach controlled, dewatering began… and Cavour finally tore free in a violent breakout.

To make the lift safe, Cavour was taken into Floating Drydock GO-12, raised fully clear, and celebrated as a rare salvage triumph of WWII engineering.
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