Cruise Ship Costa Concordia - MERGED THREADS

[MacG]

SV Alchemy :
Nautical superstitions, on the other hand, are just seamanlike prudence!

That's a good one!

[S/V Alchemy]

That Der Spiegel article is excellent and contains details I have not read elsewhere, along with very good graphics.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Thread drift alert!
If the supercosmos knows anything at all, then it would seem likely it would know about mankind's inventions (including time and space).

I suspect superstition existed well before main churches got in on the act.

To me, if someone mentions superstition, it's superstition as it relates to that thread. I don't believe in superstition. Wanna change your boat's name? Just change it! You don't have to jump through flaming hoops OR anything else someone else says you "have" to do.

What you HAVE to do is learn to manage your boat well. That's a lot harder than jumping through a flaming hoop or blindly following rules someone else made up.

What's the point? Some superstition did not cause this accident. An unbroken bottle of champagne did not cause it. As the evaluation evolves, we will find out, and I'm certain it's going to cause a number of human errors. If a guest captain took over, then wasn't he the captain of the boat? Doesn't it make sense for the deposed captain to get off the boat? But why wouldn't he be stating this once he got on land -- I'm not the captain, talk to the guy up there who took over!

I don't buy it. I think the original captain left FIRST, and THEN someone stepped up. Or, took charge in some area that needed it only to find that the appointed captain had fled.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I think that this is a rather unkind comment.

To feed my sea addiction when I was between boats, I took a number of cruise ship cruises, and loved them all, met very interesting people, breathed the sea air, visited interesting places, read a lot of books, came back tanned, rested, and happy. I would definitely do it again if my every free moment were not devoted to my own boat.

Incidentally, one of them was on Costa, and it was possibly the best of the lot. We went to Cartagena and some other really interesting places, including some fairly offbeat ports, and the passengers were mostly Europeans, and even more interesting than usual. It was an excellent cruise -- and it takes a mind-boggling degree of organization to house, feed and entertain a couple of thousand people to very high standards of quality.

Cruising on a cruise ship is much cheaper and much more relaxing than sailing your own boat. I actually feel some nostalgia for it now and again. I spent a month cruising North Brittany on my own boat last summer, and didn't read a single book. I hardly saw anything of the magical places we visited, either. I was working too hard running and maintaining the vessel, fixing things, finding spare parts in pidgin French, navigating, passage planning, running tidal vector calculations, provisioning, making electricity, etc., etc., etc. It's tremendous fun, of course -- the most fun thing you can do, probably, with your clothes on -- but it is hard work.

There's a lot to be said for taking a trip on a cruise ship, as a vacation, especially for someone who works hard and needs a rest. Before I ever tried it, I also thought that it was a disgusting form of cheap, mass tourism. It's not that at all, as it turns out. It is exceedingly pleasant, and an outstanding value for the money.

Lots of ordinary people take cruises. I don't have a deepwater boat. I sail my boat -- AND I like to take cruises. That does not make me a bad person. It also doesn't make me rich -- honest.

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by svBeBe

I have not read most of the comments in this thread, so I apologize if this is a duplicate of a previously posted link. This blow-by-blow analysis indicates that while the captain was certainly at fault for maneuvering far too fast and far too close to the shore and causing this accident, he did handle the ship surprisingly well AFTER hitting the rock(s). Had the ship sunk farther offshore there would certainly have been significantly more deaths.

gCaptain’s John Konrad Narrates the Final Maneuvers of the Costa Concordia [VIDEO] | gCaptain - Maritime & Offshore
Judy

Finally managed to track something down on cruise ships power management system, (engines, geny's etc)
This for the Costa Victoria, a similar vessel

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...FhmzEg&cad=rja

As can be seen, the 6 diesels in two engine rooms drive generators which supply power to prop shafts and thrusters.
As reported by the ships crew, both engine rooms flooded within 15 minutes of striking the rocks.
How the Captain managed to manouver the vessel with no props or thrusters is beyond me. I dont think they had time to move the anchors out using the ships boats, but could be a good excuse for being in a lifeboat

[MacG]

I offered already the "pivot" idea but that was apparently not being the case. Question is what is the rate of turn of that vessel?
Bowthrusters? I don' t think so. There is a YT movie when the Concordia is employing the bowthrusters to turn and it takes ages (Palermo harbour).
It could be, but it takes a very long time, time that was not there. Maybe in combination with the still forward momentum, that could be.

[St. Elsewhere]

Originally Posted by nigel1

How the Captain managed to manouver the vessel with no props or thrusters is beyond me. I dont think they had time to move the anchors out using the ships boats, but could be a good excuse for being in a lifeboat

Previous credible posts report that the thrusters were available.

News just reported that the 16th body has been recovered. There are 16 now dead, 16 listed on manifest missing, and possibly additional unregistered passengers missing.

[MacG]

There is still a number of passengers not identified yet. This quoted number of 16 is therefore not 100% accurate.

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by St. Elsewhere

Previous credible posts report that the thrusters were available.

See this article, which includes reports from mates on the bridge

Costa Concordia captain 'distracted by guests on bridge' | World news | guardian.co.uk

"I told the captain Schettino of the situation," said Giuseppe Pilon. "I told him we had lost control of the ship." Only about an hour after the impact did Schettino give the order to abandon ship.It has been suggested that Schettino saved lives by steering the drifting vessel in shallow water, using the anchors to turn it. But Coronika said she heard no orders from Schettino to try the manoeuvre.

[SaucySailoress]

Originally Posted by ChannelIslander

It now seems apparent to me that the captain and his first officer were ordered off the bridge by the "mutineers" and that's why they were in a lifeboat together and that's why he was making up excuses not to go back on board when ordered to do so by the port captain.

An interesting thought - have you, by any chance, read of this somewhere, or is it a hunch? But it's probably quite likely.

[ChannelIslander]

Have read in several posts here of the mutiny, that all bridge officers bar one turned against Schettino. Hunch about that being why they were in a lifeboat.

[HappySeagull]

Originally Posted by MacG

I offered already the "pivot" idea but that was apparently not being the case. Question is what is the rate of turn of that vessel?
Bowthrusters? I don' t think so. There is a YT movie when the Concordia is employing the bowthrusters to turn and it takes ages (Palermo harbour).
It could be, but it takes a very long time, time that was not there. Maybe in combination with the still forward momentum, that could be.

I saw the bowthruster way back the thread in an animation of the AIS.The power to run them seems to be the problem.StElsewhere's link has it that she hits about 2145 captain threw engines to astern immediatelyThe main propulsion to be lost about 2148 while a stoker on another link says all power (one engine?Standbys?) to have been lost "15 minutes" after that.But the thrusters are reported at 2205.Even though the AIS shows a very sharp turn as though she'd either swung on her anchors(but it's too deep!?)or used thrusters -she was doing 2knots or less when she turned these on,slowed to a stop and commenced a sideways push tward the shore...if she didn't use thrusters (where WAS the Power and control for these?) it has to be the wind which was either 15knots+ or much less depending on the versions I've read .It had to be onshore.The currents must be favourable or weak or none.
She fetches up at 2250.apparently abandon isn't given until about 1 hour so that's about 2245,five minutes before fetching up.There has been mention of this in the context of no point cluttering the decks until there's somewhere to go ie:sending people off as the listing ship is heading sideways to the rocks might kill half of them....

HMMMMM.

[Silverado6x6]

If I recall the Concordia had a 1.3megawatt emergency generator near the bridge, they have a nickname for it.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by MacG

I can fill a book about toilets. I became friends with an engineer of a SuperMega during the Show in Nice. He invited me on board and there was that faint, typical smell.
He knew it was something down there in the bilge, but he suffered from claustrofobia and no one of the crew was prepared to crawl there to look for the problem. It was quite complicated because those ships have a number of grey- and blackwater holding tanks. The space in between the tankdeck and the floore was extremely narrow, but grace my jockey-like posture I had no difficulty to go in.
I took a dive and found the problem: the main sewerpipe of the blackwater was broken.
Repair was not that difficult: with an oversize sock and PVC glue it was a matter of an hour. But it was a very dirty job, that I can tell you.

He's your friend for life, now, I bet!!

[MacG]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

He's your friend for life, now, I bet!!

The owner left me the ship for a day's trip. There was only 60 cm between tanktop and floor. And a lot of hydraulic waste. The Yacht was built in Japan and the owner told me real horror stories about Japanese laborers customs.
It was one of the first or maybe the first FRP Mega ever built.