Here is a timeline. The captain abandoned the ship while there were at least 300 people still on board. Was trying to move the ship closer to the island a good move? I’m surprised that an evacuation wasn’t started almost immediately rather than 40 minutes after the collision; maybe he didn’t know how big the hole in the hull was. Any captains that can provide an analysis?
I’d agree the hotel can be repaired / refitted / replaced pretty easily & quickly.
But …
I question that all the ships engineering stuff can be repaired / replaced so quickly. Yes, all equipment on a ship is designed with *some *waterproofing in mind. But the fact the engine room & electrical plant & HVAC plant & sewage system and refrigeration systems and … will all have been submerged in sea water for a couple months has to cause damage to those things. All of which will need to be evaluated and, if necesary, replaced before they get serious replacing the hotel on top.
As an example, I would not be much surprised to discover the ship needs almost a complete electrical system replacement. Which probably includes all the wiring for telephone & data, plus maybe CATV to each cabin.
From La Repubblica: a couple dozen photographs of Costa ships very close to shores. Many of these look legit, like the Fortuna that I saw being pulled by a tug, but some could be questionable.
Most of the muster drills I’ve attended on cruise ships never did anything that involved separating the women from the men--------or anything that requires standing, for that matter.
Mostly, at the appointed time the passengers grabbed their life jackets and showed up at their “Muster Station”, which was whatever Promenade Deck entertainment venue was closest to your cabin, then sat in that theatre or nightclub or whatever and listened to lame jokes mingled in with a review of safety procedures and ship rules – you are not allowed in any non-passenger areas unless on an official tour EVEN if a crew member invites you —, if you have to abandon ship step off, don’t JUMP, …etc…then everyone stood up at the end and put on their life jackets just to prove they knew how to and … then everyone that figured it out took off the life jackets and went to the bar while the crew helped out the people that weren’t good with life jackets.
I’ve never seen them separate the sexes ( and in the theatre it would be easy, seat the men in the back and send the women and children down front…and we never did any sort of drill that would cause us to go outside or even stand up.
However they are RELIGIOUS about holding the drills …every ship I’ve been on held them prior to sailing except one, there were boarding delays on that one so the drill happened just after we left port. Everyone I’ve discussed the accident with has trouble believing they didn’t hold the drill…a friend that has worked in the cruise business for 20 years had never heard of any ship not doing that.
Well, I’m leaving on a cruise on Wednesday, a new cruise line for me, and I’m interested in seeing if they do things differently.
I saw the Dateline documentary on this ship wreck last year
The captain took off early during that one, too … it’s probably a good thing they don’t give airline pilots parachutes
I’ve been involved in the aftermath and detailed investigation of a lot of marine incidents. There are no sensors indicating the nature and extent of damage on commercial vessels. It can be very hard to work out what is going on below the waterline. 40 minutes doesn’t surprise me at all. Evacuation is in itself a dangerous operation (people die in lifeboat drills every year). It’s a last resort. Attempting to counter ballast to keep the vessel upright, and or beaching the vessel are safer options if possible.
Another thing I have learned is that about perhaps half of all news reports in the immediate aftermath will be bullshit. Doubly so if they conform to certain stereotypes (like “Captain drunk” or “Captain abanded ship leaving passengers to their fate” or “Captain sleeping at inappropriate time”). And even to the extent they have a grain of truth, they are usually not even close to the whole story.
Typical refits are highly planned and routine. I don’t think what it would take to entirely refurbish this vessel after it has been mostly filled with salt water bears any resemblance at all to a routine refit.
Those guys had balls.
I’d have found a wig.
The ship has to be stopped dead in the water to lower lifeboats & do an evacuation (and people are likely to be injured or die during evacuation). The other choice was to return to the port, which was less than an hour away. If they can get into port, everybody can get off the ship normally, with no injuries or deaths, and the ship itself can probably be repaired.
The captain here took that second choice, to make for port. But the damage to the ship was greater than they thought, so they were unable to make it. But it was a reasonable choice, probably even the safest one at the time.
I’ve actually seen that ship, or one from the same line, in the Venice Lagoon. In fact, there was another extremely large cruise ship in there at the same time. That’s another disaster waiting to happen, what with the millions of other smaller (relatively) boats zooming around.
Is there a pier where they could they have docked at the island, or were they trying to make it back to where they embarked?
I’ve seen this quote in several news stories. No one has actually explained what the emergency maneuver was. is it some standard thing every captain is trained to do?
The most detailed explanation I’ve read is that it somehow involved the anchors. Maybe the nautical equivalent of a handbrake turn?
Here’s a graphic citing Lloyd’s, showing the expected course and the course taken by the Costa Concordia. That article also mentions that one of the crew members is from Giglio and speculates that the captain was sweeping by the island as a favor to the crew member.
BTW it is highly likely that the charts to which he refers are electronic ones per a GPS system.
Here’s an animated tracking display (useful but not amazing detail - full-screen mode is necessary to see much). It shows the ship was doing around 15 knots prior to the grounding. It seems to indicate a 180-degree maneuver after the grounding that put the ship in shallow water very close to shore (which plausibly did significantly reduce the loss of life).
A captian probably would not know he probably could not even read a blue print. The Chief would the one to give the necessary information about how much water was being taken on. When the Chief told the captian which compartments were flooding and hhow many pounds of water were coming into the compartments, then the captian may try and counter flood.
Here is a photo that shows the situation (about the 10th picture in) – rescue divers walking along the pier in the harbor, with boats in the harbor, and in the background the foundered ship.
They came incredibly close to actually getting into that port. Though I’m not sure it could actually have docked – I don’t see that this port has docks big enough for this vessel. But being right inside the port certainly would have made it easy to have rescued the passengers.
Docking a boat that’s full of water and listing won’t work. The weight would just rip the mooring lines loose.
It may be good that the ship didn’t get into the port. It could have blocked it for months. All the shipping that depended on that port would be screwed.
The captain did the right thing by getting it into shallow water. That probably did save a lot of lives.
The master would have been aiming to get it into shallow water so that it would not sink. He wouldn’t have been hoping to get it neatly berthed alongside.
Schettino is condemned by his own words, for his actions afterwards anyway.