Cruise Ship Costa Concordia - MERGED THREADS

[captain465]

Bjoola, What is the source of this information, or is it conjecture?? The turn to starboard is not consistant with earlier reports of a turn to port.

[Silverado6x6]

I believe the Concordia did a port side turn using what was left of some forward momentum and possibly still some power available from the engines.
Not that I have heard that it happened but some people say that the sharp turned was done under full bow and stern thrusters. Others say the captain dropped the anchor and did a pivot.

Hopefully somebody will have more precise actions minute by minute as it happened from the log recorders.

[fairbank56]

AIS tells all.

Eric

[JoeDiver]

Originally Posted by fairbank56

AIS tells all.

Eric

I'm not an expert by any stretch, but looking at that AIS replay....I see no "heroic" maneuvers or turns, or any attempt to ground her in shallow water.

It looks to me like the ship came in, hit the rocks, then kept going, but slowing all the time. She eventually stopped, and it looks like she just drifted back to shore at that point, pushed by the 12 kts wind.

[Silverado6x6]

Hole on Port side, capsized to Starboard? - Page 3 - Cruise Critic Message Boards

Divers just found the anchor from the Concordia.

[St. Elsewhere]

Originally Posted by Silverado6x6

Hole on Port side, capsized to Starboard? - Page 3 - Cruise Critic Message Boards

Divers just found the anchor from the Concordia.

Based on the AIS animation and the picture above, it sure looks like the anchor was dropped after Concordia came to rest. The AIS information does show the heading and vessel position at each of the periodic points. It does define the loop as a turn to starboard.

The voyage recorder information should have been read out by now. The bridge voice recordings will tell a lot more.

[Dreaming Yachtsman]

Originally Posted by nigel1

....
At work, I actively discourage the use of integrated electronic chart/steering. I have noticed a tendency for ships to "follow the red line " at all costs. At least if the auto pilot is used as a standalone, the OOW actively has to monitor the route, and is maybe not so concerned as to keeping within inches of the plotted track.
....

+1 for Nigel's philosophy. That is one primary reason I did not install a chart plotter that could integrate with the autopilot (aside from the fact that autopilot is Raymarine and at the time their chart plotters were substandard).

[Bjoola]

Originally Posted by captain465

Bjoola, What is the source of this information, or is it conjecture?? The turn to starboard is not consistant with earlier reports of a turn to port.

It comes from navsim webiste:
Nawigacja morska | Technologie satelitarne | mapy morskie | c-map | AIS | s-57 | wypo?yczenie telefonu satelitarnego | telefon satelitarny IsatPhone Pro Iridium Thuraya | FleetBroadband | BGAN | Global Xpress

I believe they reconstructed it based on AIS data

[delmarrey]

Interview with Mystery Woman > Costa Concordia Investigators Want To Question Mystery Woman - ABC News

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...peaks-out.html

[goboatingnow]

There was no reports that the ship lost propulsion power no at all. She carried on as damage was accessed and since the list began 15 minute after contact the decision was to turn and head into the shallows near the port. The passengers mention that the list was first to starboard then to port. She carried on, performed a turn to starboard when obviously it was released that it was fatal. They then dropped anchor and she settled to starboard.

[MacG]

Generators were still on, so why not the engines?

[xymotic]

Originally Posted by MacG

Generators were still on, so why not the engines?

SOME generators were on, but the bulk of the ship lost power almost immediately.

[Dreaming Yachtsman]

This comment is to address speculation in pages 19-23 about the Captain's delay in sending a "Mayday" after the collision.

Having been involved in a few major incidents along the way, I strongly suspect that the "fog of war" played a large part in the delay. As Astrid mentioned in her post #281 (http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post863425) a significant amount of time can be required to sort out the situation around the ship after something like this. I suspect the Captain was not aware of the severity of the damage and the fact that his ship was sinking for some time. Even in the U.S. Navy where the crew was highly trained and well disciplined, it frequently took up to 10 minutes to get an accurate assessment of the situation at the scene of an accident and that is on a much smaller ship designed to withstand battle damage.

One has to assume that the crew felt the ship shudder when it hit the rock off La Scole and began investigating soon thereafter, even if general quarters were not sounded. (From what we have heard of this cruise, the Captain probably didn't want to unnecessarily concern the passengers by sounding the alarm until it was too late.)

[David M]

The electric generators power the main propulsion engines which are electric motors. It's hard to say at what point the propulsion motors would have been flooded, their controllers or other systems were flooded, that the motors rely on in order to operate.

Rational clear best decisions are rarely made in extremely difficult situations, not without a lot of training for that specific situation. This is how Monday morning quarter backing occurs...people have had plenty of time to think about what could and should have been the best decision.

As stupid as running this ship into a rock was, I am certain the captain would have made better post grounding decisions had he had hours to give it plenty of thought.

The Monday morning quarterbacks always have plenty of time and plenty and retrospect on their side in order to make the best post accident decisions. It just bugs me sometimes when people do this. They weren't there, are not licensed maritime professionals nor were they standing in the captains shoes at that time.

Would it make any sense to judge why an aircraft went down the day after the crash by what the media is telling you? Would it make any sense to try to decide what the pilot should have done to save the plane?

Don't get me wrong that I am defending the captain in any way, he made at least one huge mistake, as far as we know so far.

[Blue Stocking]

This ship is on the bottom after experiencing the same type of structural damage as the Titanic, a few months short of 100 YEARS ago.
Not much advancement in design in that period of time.
Still can't launch half the lifeboats.
Still can't get good control over passengers, when passenger to crew ratio is 3 to 1.
Can you imagine the confusion of "abandon ship" message in 5 languages.
These oversized chicken-coops are crowd-killers, looking for a place to happen.