We had the exact same lame drill on our Royal Caribbean ship. The first day we were told to go to our muster station which for us the the Lotus Lounge where they would have karaoke. We waited around for a while and they counted us and we were told in case of emergency get your life vest and come here and that was it. I guess on the smaller boats they get more detailed with it. Or does it just depend on the company? It seems really unwise not to have a more detailed emergency briefing especially after an incident like this. What if your muster station was underwater? I wouldn’t know what to do other than to find a crew member. Unnerving.
And if there are no men, then the chances for survival of your group are even slimmer.
Now, I am not advocating this, but as an intellectual exercise, from a pure survival standpoint, the children are useless. Toss them overboard and then prioritize who gets on the rescue boats based on what each individual could contribute in a survival situation. You want that Green Beret who’s on vacation. You probably don’t need the “life coach” or the nail tech, unless one of these people also has some other useful survival skill (such as: really good at identifying plants and berries for edibility, or can build a fire with nail polish remover and an emery board). The children aren’t going to be terribly helpful, especially the ones under 5 and hell, you can just make more. I think “women and children first” is – again from a purely survival point of view – a really bad idea.
I realize there’s no time, while a ship is sinking, to determine which of the adults have the most useful survival skills, so my idea is not practical at all. But every time I watch Titanic, I see that first boat full of wealthy pampered women, none of whom could probably even use an oar or paddle and then I look at all the third-class passengers – strong working men and women – and think, dang, what a waste of useful resources. They saved these useless princesses who won’t lift a finger to help anyone else and who are all paralyzed by fear and they let the bravest and strongest go down with the ship. Stupid.
Also I should acknowledge that this assumes no rescue is or will be available – the ship is sinking in the middle of the ocean and those who manage to get off the ship might find some deserted island somewhere upon which the survivors will have to build a new life and a new civilization. Seeing as how we have aircraft and rescue ships and there probably isn’t any uninhabited island anywhere on Earth, my idea is therefore stupid that we should just toss all the children overboard and concentrate on the people who can actually be helpful or useful. You could also save the children as a potential food source later.
:: D & R ::
Actually, there are thousands of uninhabited islands in the world. There are no unclaimed islands in the world, but it is quite possible that you might wash ashore on an island that rarely ever sees human vistors.
Whereas all 6 Carnival (five different ships), 2 Royal Caribbean (two different ships), and 1 Norwegian cruise I’ve been on have held the muster drill at the actual on-deck muster station.
For the Carnival cruises, we actually were told to be in our cabins and report to the muster station at the signal with life jackets in hand, where we had to put them on and listen to a thorough safety briefing. During the drills, the evac staff took up position in their assigned locations throughout the ship, the emergency lighting came on, and they even routed us through the crew-only areas if necessary to shorten our route. It was as close as they could manage to an actual evacuation.
The RCI cruises, we did not have to bring or wear our jackets, but we did have a thorough briefing. Again, the evac staff was where they would actually be if something were to happen and it felt like a real drill.
The Norwegian cruise was the most lackadaisical muster drill I’ve ever seen. The signal was given, we went to the muster station, and the environmental officer (our assigned muster officer) half-heartedly held up a life jacket and played with it for a bit, then dismissed us. It honestly concerned me, because we were not in any way prepared for what would have happened if evacuation became necessary.
SOLAS requires the muster drill to be held within 24 hours of sailing, but I have never sailed on a ship where it happened after we were underway; however, Costa in not having done one prior to sailing was not in violation of the treaty.
I have heard from friends who have sailed on some other Carnival ships that they mustered in the theater or one of the lounges, and what they have in common is that they are smaller ships – however, the emergency lighting / evac staff / real drill atmosphere was maintained on their cruises as well.
I sailed on a Royal Caribbean cruise, and I believe shortly after we got underway, we had a very thorough lifeboat drill, in which we all had to put on life jackets, go to our assigned spot on deck (by cabin location – there were no policies regarding gender, age or height), and stand for about 30 minutes listening to a discussion of evacuation procedures.
Meanwhile, yesterday I was discussing the "women and children first"policy with a (female) friend of mine. I expressed my opinion that while there might be some validity to saving children, the “women” part was sexist and outdated.
She disagreed, and replied “Men go down, and women get off.”
I started laughing, and when I pointed out what she had just said, she said, “Well, I still support that policy” as a bright red blush spread slowly up her face. 
Remember that the concept of women and children first was happening at a time when ships didn’t have enough lifeboats to accommodate everyone on the ship.
If the Shitno and the rest of the crew on the Italian ship were properly trained and didn’t have their heads up their collective asses, then we would only be talking about the loss of the ship and not about deaths and missing people.
I also heard a comment recently but I don’t know if it relates to the Birkenhead or Titanic, but it seems somebody told the men to “be British”.
I keep wondering if it wasn’t the fact that the ship was listing (having been beached on a sandbar) so badly that only the port side life boats could be used, albeit slowly. The starboard lower desk side appears to below the water and deploying the lifeboats would be a bit …uh. problematical given the hydrostatic pressure involved. If, instead, they had employed these Much better lifeboat everyone would have had a much nicer time.
Oh heck I don’t know maybe a bunch of these would have down better.
http://www.boatboss.com/adpics/4f17200d3841931e292c63ae9.png
My question is: Policy or not? Are all cruise captains give the authority to deliberately steer the ship off course? And in this instance, so the head chef can wave to and be seen by his family on Giglio?
Basically, yes. The Captain needs the authority to control the course so as to avoid other craft, deal with weather, assist vessels in trouble, pick up someone who fell overboard, etc. Along with this is supposed to go full responsibility for the consequences of choosing a course.
I don’t know about conventions or maritime laws, but I’d be happy with ‘women and children and the infirm (elderly mainly) first’ except for one thing - modern feminism. No matter how it was handled, it would be wrong.
The “main point” was this: "I always understood the reality to be “first class passengers first, then crew, then the people left scramble for the remaining boats”.
A larger percentage of 3rd Class women survived than 1st Class men. Also considering that 3rd Class women had further to go to get up to the life boat decks, this means that most First Class Men (who were already at that level of the ship) were forced to wait for 3rd Class women to board before being allowed to board themselves.
So Der Trihs’s main point does not stand. Your interpretation comparing the survival rate of women who were already at the upper levels of the boat with those who started in the bowels of the ship doesn’t do reality any justice.
The numbers show that a great deal of effort was made to rescue women and children first regardless of class.
Well from Monty Python I learned that the rule is: women, children, Red Indians, spacemen, and a sort of idealized version of the complete Renaissance Man first.
Don’t know if this is true
The current plight of the Costa Concordia brings to mind a comment made by Churchill.
After his retirement he was cruising the Mediterranean on an Italian cruise liner.
Some Italian journalists asked why an ex British Prime Minister should chose an Italian ship.
“There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship” said Churchill.
“First their cuisine is unsurpassed."
“Second their service is superb.”
"And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first”.
:eek:
Separation of a family leaving the remaining members destitute or orphans would seem to be something that courts may consider.
In these days of sexual equality, I advocate evacuating in age order: youngest first.
I could be wrong, but my understanding was that they had the opposite problem. One side had the lifeboats a hundred meters above the water. The boats on other side were resting on the hull, which sloped gently down for several hundred meters to the waterline