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Reuters<\/p>\n
South African salvage master Nick Sloane played a key role in the Costa Concordia mission.<\/p>\n
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Related Stories<\/p>\n
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Durban – After leading the salvage of the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship in Italy, salvage master Nick Sloane said he wished his father and mentor, John, had been alive to see the refloating of the ship. <\/p>\n
The head of what has been called \u201cthe biggest salvage operation in history\u201d has always been a man of the sea, his family in South Africa told The Mercury on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
John died in 2010 but Sloane believes his father would have been amazed at his latest feat. <\/p>\n
In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Sloane said that he and his team had been unsure how things would turn out but that their success was thrilling. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was way better than we hoped for,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He said he had taken a day off with his team to have a braai, but he kept thinking about his dad. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe would have really loved it. He loved telling salvage stories. I loved sailing in Durban harbour with him. We had the best of times,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Sloane emphasised that the salvage was a 500-member team effort. On Wednesday he was back at work. <\/p>\n
His new fame was overwhelming, he said, but what he wanted most was to be home. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI am hoping to be in South Africa in the first week of October. I promised my children I would see them before the final term of school,\u201d Sloane said. <\/p>\n
His children Jonothan, Nicola and Julia and his wife, Sandra, live in Cape Town and Sloane is hoping to have time available to visit his mother, Brenda, in Kloof. <\/p>\n
\u201cI really miss my family,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
His sister, Caroline Turner, said her dad and her brother often sailed together. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey always invited me to go with them but Nick enjoyed it the most,\u201d she said from her home in Joburg. <\/p>\n
The former Kearsney College pupil grew up in Kloof, with his parents and sisters, Caroline and Michel Thomson, who now live in Joburg, and his brother Simon, who is an attorney in Singapore. <\/p>\n
Sloane joined Safmarine South and previously captained the John Ross salvage tug before joining Safmarine\u2019s salvage unit. Three years ago he started his own company. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has no ego and he\u2019s always been about the team. He wants things to be done well and in detail,\u201d Turner said. <\/p>\n
When she saw her brother on the news channels, she felt proud, she added. <\/p>\n
Michel was equally astonished. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen our parents emigrated to South Africa from London, Nick always loved having breakfast with the captain (of the ship) and that\u2019s what he wanted to do from there. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been great if dad was alive. He would have been very proud.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reuters South African salvage master Nick Sloane played a key role in the Costa Concordia mission. Related Stories Concordia raised off the rocks Video: Costa Concordia now upright \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Costa Concordia set on platform Concordia operation \u2018slow and steady\u2019 Engineers begin Costa Concordia operation Durban – After leading the salvage of the wrecked Costa Concordia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-22712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}