GIGLIO ISLAND: Italy’s once-luxurious Costa Concordia cruise liner embarked on its last voyage on Wednesday, as tug boats began towing it from island wreck site to scrapyard grave in one of the biggest salvage operations in maritime history.

Sunshine streamed down on the Mediterranean bay where hundreds of onlookers watched as the final cable attaching ship to shore was cut, finally severing ties between the Tuscan island of Giglio and the ship two and a half years after its capsize claimed 32 lives.

“We’ve done it! She’s off!” shouted salvage specialists in hard hats who popped champagne bottles and sprayed the crowd, while tourists cheered and church bells rang out as the ship was pulled away.

“It’s hard not to get emotional,” said Franco Porcellacchia, an engineer with ship owner Costa Crociere.

“Today, Giglio is once again ours,” a local man, visibly relieved to see the back of the Concordia, said.

The rusting liner, roughly twice the size of the Titanic and now hoisted afloat by massive air chambers, will be tugged to the port of Genoa in northwest Italy, where it will be dismantled and scrapped.

The massive operation — including a 17-man crew aboard the Concordia, a dozen accompanying vessels, and two giant tug boats pulling the wreckage at a speed of just two knots (3.7 kms) per hour — is expected to reach Genoa in four days.

“This is a big day for Giglio but we’ll only be able to relax once it reaches Genoa”, Nick Sloane, the South African salvage master in charge of the operation, said.

Franklin Fitzgerald, 35, an industrial diver from Texas, called his work on the Concordia “one of the proudest moments of my career. It’s a very happy day for all of us,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 24th , 2014