Cruise Ship Costa Concordia - MERGED THREADS

[Ram]

in the audio the captain said he was catapulted over board when the ship listed-anyone catch that?

[Capt Phil]

You have a point, atoll, but the skipper should not have left his ship and his exec or First Officer should have advised him of that. Not a good time to make an inspection of the hull damage from outside the vessel. It is next to impossible to 'coordinate' an Abandon Ship order from one of the lifeboats as he has claimed. He had a direct order from the Coast Guard commander to reboard the vessel and take command of the evacuation which he refused to do. All the comm's would come from the bridge under these circumstances. He is paid well to keep his head under duress and should have been trained in the correct procedures and behaviors of leadership which certainly appear lacking in this instance. As dawn broke, there were passengers and crew lined up standing on the side of the hull waiting to be picked off by rescue vessels probably because it was impossible to launch lifeboats from that angle of heel.
Atoll has it right in that it was a F..K UP of hugh magnitude.
My heart goes out to those who lost their life and their families in this exercise in stupidity. Capt Phil

[xymotic]

And Kudos to the Coastie. I think he handled the situation *exceptionally* well.

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by atoll

were they Gucci

At his "former" pay grade, probably. They might come in handy at his future residence, the Greybar Hotel, for buying some protection.

[hellosailor]

" in the audio the captain said he was catapulted over board when the ship listed-anyone catch that? "
Yes, that was played in CNN's late coverage this afternoon. They didn't say catapulted per se but he did say something about being thrown in the water. If that's so it changes everything, because the last thing you do is disrupt the evacuation by trying to push someone against the stream of evacuees. And if the ship is significantly listing at that point, regaining the bridge might need a mountain goat with deck shoes. (And you know how hard it is to get TopSiders in that size.)

WRT trying to bring the ship into the harbor instead of careening it: I could see someone being very reluctant to do that. Stick a behemoth in the harbor and you might destroy the breakwaters AND plug the bottle, putting everyone who makes their living out of that harbor out of commission for six months or a year.

Now, the really important question is about that "Port Captain" who was yelling t the ship captain on the radio. I absolutely must know, with all that hollering and emotion, was he also talking with his hands? Terribly unprofessional the way he was shouting.

[deckofficer]

No, I missed hearing that, nifty defense though.

[St. Elsewhere]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Stick a behemoth in the harbor and you might destroy the breakwaters AND plug the bottle, putting everyone who makes their living out of that harbor out of commission for six months or a year.

Concordia is about seven times longer than the largest boat in that harbor. It would not begin to fit.

[goboatingnow]

The claims and counter claims get greater. An article on the bbc using loylds data claims the ship regularly went this close with the full permission of the Costa company. The route shown however in my opinion is closer to la scole. But it's an interesting new angle.

The captain now claims he was thrown over the side during the list and couldn't reboard, !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16606405

Dave

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by atoll

it is quite possable he was in a state of shock,and unable to make rational decisions..............after an f up of that magnitude

That would be my understanding as well, you've lost lives of people in your care, lost $400m of company hardware, career is pretty much finished. Could well be the only thought going through his head was WTF WTF-
Spent a ferw years in salvage, some not sio pretty, so have first hand experience as to how some skippers cope, or not.

I saw some of the translations with regard to the captain and the CG, my take was he said he fell overboard. Quite a few of the news broadcasts omitted this, probably for obvious reasons. If he did fall over and was picked up by a boat, it may well have been close to impossible to get back on board again.

[MacG]

The conversation was in Italian, in case you understand Italian and translated it by yourself you might have a point. There is a translation published by The Guardian that sounds quite accurate. Translations form other papers are quite incorrect. In agreement with what you stipulated.

I think the whole picture must be quite clear, Schettino is already accused and the rest will be a very close investigation and the fact that he is under housearrest makes it clear that he is not coming away with a blackened eye.

For this sort of escapades you need local knowledge and a pretty good picture of what is the position of the rocks that are partially buried below waterlevel.

There is not a single excuse to be made in this case.

[justwaiting]

Sitting back in my arm chair .....
Still far more questions than answers BUT some things are starting to stick out.
The conduct of the Captain both at the time of the "accident" and in his answers since (granted as reported and translated by others) fails to answer who took the decision to change from the prescribed and program course and why that was done. In the transcripts he talks about having to use a tourist navigation system as if this was the cause of the accident. If we consider prudent seamanship then he would have wanted to sea room (distance and time) to take actions in emergencies including the need to avoid collisions and in the case of steering or engine failures. Given the length, and mass and speed of the vessel i can not see how the proximity to the visible outcrops let alone those submerged can be considered any thing less than reckless.

The apparent failure to issue a mayday or otherwise notify authorities or others (perhaps including those that may have been able to assist, ferries, tug boats or what ever) mystifies me. Sure maybe shock had set in but that is why there are emergency procedures that are practices so that i such situation people act rather that what appears to have been the case.

The (many) questions as to why and how the captain left the ship are also very worrying. Lets be charitable for a moment and agree that the captain got catapulted of the ship (with no apparent injuries) what was the first officer off the ship at the same time. Surely in such a situation one of the two most senior offices should have been on the bridge from the time that the ship first struck. Look at the transcripts they were side by side OFF the ship while evacuations were taking place.

This forum dose not have the right to demand answers but those on board who were directly effected and the many more who were indirectly affected do have the right know.

[Cotemar]

I think that after the captain gets out of jail he can find a job as a deck hand on some dilapidated freighter bringing plastic dog poop from china to the usa. No real qualifications needed.

[MacG]

There are no questions. There are only facts. There are no excuses for any of his actions.
"Tourist" navigation system on a 450 mil Euro boat .....

Apparently the pax of Concordia put their safety in the hands of a "Tourist" captain from the watertaxi of Venice .....

[Cotemar]

Back in 2008 the Costa Concordia ship “recklessly” crashed as it approached the dock in Palermo, Sicily. It left families stranded for more than 15 hours as workers frantically tried to repair a huge dent in the side of the vessel. There was no announcement from the captain or anybody really to let people know what had happened, that there had been a crash.

Cruise ship:

[lancelot9898]

What amazes me is that there were not more deaths out of the 4000 souls aboard on a sinking boat in the black of night with little or no control by the crew and captain.

And secondly, getting that boat to list to starboard with apparently a gash on the port side? seems unlikely. I think it was "luckly" that the boat was "beached".