That’s only one of the more recent cases. Here’s one from 30 years ago:
The Oceanos is also interesting because it seemingly had no maintenance work done at all. It encountered rough weather, but the flooding began because waste disposal system repairs hadn’t been finished; after lifeboats were launched, their engines would not start; and walkie-talkie batteries were all dead.
Do you mean specifically cruise vessels? I’d agree with that as cruise vessel masters are a whole other thing from regular commercial masters.
I’ve come across numerous ex Russian navy officers working as commercial vessel masters and officers. I’ve also come across numerous marine engineers who started out in the Australian Navy.
@CalMeacham’s comment was from 2006. Costa Concordia was 2012.
I had no idea that @CalMeacham is clairvoyant.
It’s the interocitor.
I think we’ve all known for a while that he’s a time traveler, though.
I knew you will did had posted that.
I think that was the tradition of “Women and Children First” (and IIRC rather than being an example of chivalric sacrifice, it actually required an officer to threaten the crew with a pistol to enforce the “women and children first” rule).
The “captain goes down with his ship” as a written rule (or aspiration) goes back to a similar era (Victorian Britain’s seafaring) , but probably predates that. E.g. medieval Arab accounts (though in this its the loss of his “capital” that causes the captain to go down with his ship):
The situation was now urgent; the lifeboat was put on the water and thirty-three men went down into it. Ahmed was pressed to go down into the lifeboat, but he said, “I shall not leave my ship, for there is more hope of it being saved than the lifeboat; and if it goes down, I go down with it, for I have no interest in returning after the loss of my capital.”
After the development of the insurance market, the master would not necessarily
have faced loss of his fortune, even if his only asset was the ship and it sank. Lloyds (while not the only or first insurance market) got going in 1688.
I saw a documentary in which a (British?) member of the band recounted calling for help on the radio. When asked what rank he was, he replied, “Uh… I’m a guitar player”.
There’s also the inspiration for the main inciting incident in Lord Jim, SS Jeddah, in which the captain and crew abandoned the passengers on what they believed was a doomed vessel… only to have the vessel taken under tow by a passing steamer and brought safely into port: