Cruise Ship Costa Concordia - MERGED THREADS

[David M]

In the rules it says to use near and far radar ranges.

[MacG]

Which means that there were no radars working on the bridge at the time the ship approached Giglio.
Total absence of basic seamanship. Quite unheard of. Costa might prepare themselves for a superclaim.

[Astrid]

BTW an erring pilot is more than often a dead pilot. Take AF440 as an example.

Very true; and as you stated earlier, the whole tragedy was the cumulative effect of one stupid error after another. I cannot imagine why anyone would go to the bridge without their perscription glasses at a time when their ship was approaching the coast and standing into danger.

[btrayfors]

Originally Posted by Astrid

Very true; and as you stated earlier, the whole tragedy was the cumulative effect of one stupid error after another. I cannot imagine why anyone would go to the bridge without their perscription glasses at a time when their ship was approaching the coast and standing into danger.

Hmmmm....maybe a comely 21-year old Ukrainian lass who reportedly was on the bridge to "help translate for the Russian passengers"? That has the clearest ring of truth of any of the excuses and "explanations" we've heard so far :-) Bill

[sarafina]

Originally Posted by btrayfors

Hmmmm....maybe a comely 21-year old Ukrainian lass who reportedly was on the bridge to "help translate for the Russian passengers"? That has the clearest ring of truth of any of the excuses and "explanations" we've heard so far :-) Bill

Guessing those might be the wealthy Russian passengers that allegedly bought space on a lifeboat...

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by MacG

Having radar on stand by is basic seamanship. Sometime ago a Dutch merchant ship ran aground in Norway. The captain was reprimanded for having only one working radar and not his harbour radar on. Both screens as it turned out were on too far a distance from each other.
Ok, Giglio is no Rotterdam, but it has a small port with lot's of active fishermen in small boats. At least to keep reckoning with those is not a luxury.

Next to that the first mate was on the bridge too: did he forgo to take his glasses too?

BTW an erring pilot is more than often a dead pilot. Take AF440 as an example.

I would much prefer having the radar in TX mode (Transmitting) NOT STBY (Stand-by) mode when approaching land, actually the only time the Radars are in Stand-by or off, is when we are alongside.....

Stand-by in Radar talk is basically "Ready to use but not transmitting", i didn't read anything in the linked story to suggest the radars where in stand-by or off, just that the Captain asked the Officer of the watch to set up the Radar because "he wasn't able to see very well" due to his forgetting his glasses (a silly mistake), all this could mean is adjusting the Radar(s) for approaching land......

IMO i would find it difficult to believe the CC was wandering around the Tyrrhenian Sea without transmitting Radars, and so far i have heard nothing to suggest this......

[MacG]

Stand by to me means in operating mode. Actually on a ship that size both radars should be active 7/24. But you are right, TX is more clear as "stand by" has a double meaning.
Quite often they have an extra set on the stern in case of a shadow-effect.

[St. Elsewhere]

Six salvage bids received. They will be cutting her up for removal . . . . .

Name: COSTA CONCORDIA Costa Concordia - Type of ship: Passenger ship - Callsign: IBHD - vesseltracker.com
IMO: 9320544
Time: 09-03-2012 20:46:20 UTC

NEWS:
Costa Crociere SpA are considering six proposals to remove the vessel that may involve breaking up the "Costa Concordia". On Mar 8, Costa Crociere SpA said in a statement that each plan submitted for bidding consideration envisages a 10-12 month salvage operation. Each one focuses on ensuring the least environmental impact around Giglio. Costa released few details of the six competing bids, saying only that some of the plans may involve removing some external parts of the ship. That would allow for the hull to be more easily dislodged from the rocks where it is currently perched. Experts have expressed doubt that such a huge liner can be simply refloated and removed intact. The winning bid is expected to be announced later in March or early April.
Removal of the wreck cannot begin until all 500,000 gallons of fuel have been extracted from the ship's tanks. That pumping operation, which has been under way for several weeks, was hampered by poor weather on Mar 8. Meanwhile Greenpeace has warned that chemicals fromthe ship wreck were oozing into the sea, but the environment ministry said the levels were not “significant”. The organisation, which conducted research on Giglio between Feb 15 and 18, also detected small traces of hydrocarbons in drinking water from a desalination plant on the island of around 82mg per litre. Researchers had found 2.12mg per litre of ammonia in the sea, which could be due to the decomposition of organic material like food on the ship, and 4.35mg per litre of material from soaps and industrial detergents. The results are all below minimum reference levels in research carried out by the environment agency in the Tuscany region where Giglio is located. The environment ministry said that traces of hydrocarbons and detergents were below levels that could be properly registered. Local technicians on Giglio have been carrying out daily tests on the sea water around the installation for more than a month and a half. All the results were well below the limits imposed by the law. They suggested the hydrocarbons in the drinking water could have something to do with the conditions of the plumbing and not the sea water.

[Silverado6x6]

I bet the coalition of the major cruise companies will be sending letters of protest to any documentary filmakers to keep this as low profile as possible.

I for one would dearly love to see a Modern marvels episode all about shipbreaking, from how they run a vessel at high tide upon the beaches in India and then they just attack it like a couple of thousand beetles upon a cow carcass.

Who knows maybe some new tech will be tried out here like industrial laser, high pressure water cutting, land based cables on powered capstans that act like a giant chain saw. Or maybe they will place strategic packets of explosives or of ropes of extreme high temperature thermite to melt away structural members underwater.

I don't know how close in they can get to create a cofferdam around the ship but in theory if they could create one that leaves the whole ship high and dry they could drain and repair any hull damage and possibly be able to right it by placing equipment on the port side to stabilize it, and then to roll it by using crane barges.

My gut feeling tells me they won't accept anything of a slice n dice, whole hull removal or nothing. get err done...

[gcaptain]

I'd be very surprised if I found out that the radars where on stby, but where parallel index lines set up? These are a very basic and proven method for avoiding the shore.

Here is an article I wrote about lessons we can learn as boaters from this (and other) marine casualties. I ended up not publishing it on my own blog because our audience is big ship mariners but, as both a ship captain and avid cruiser, I hope it finds some value here:



Maritime Disasters - 5 Lessons Learned For Boaters


1) Sea Room - If you ever learn how to fly a plane one of the first lessons is how to manage an emergency. From engine stalls to instrument failure the instructor will tell you that lots can go wrong on a plane but, by gliding to a clearing, you can survive if you remain calm. Then he’ll add a caveat: if you have enough altitude to recover.


For aviators and professional mariners the lesson is clear, leave plenty of room between you and the hard earth but boaters, who tend to think of land as a security blanket, rarely take this advice. Here in Morro Bay I’ve seen countless times small boats rounding Point Conception (called locally California’s Cape Horn) just a few miles from the rocky shorline.

The Costa Concordia ran aground for one simple reason... his proximity to shore turned a regular mistake (missing a waypoint) into a disaster.

When I round Point Conception it’s often at a distance of 30-60 miles which gives me plenty of drift room if something goes wrong but keeps me inside the range of helicopter support.

2) MAYDAY

What is the most critical factor in an emergency at sea? It’s time!

As boaters and men we rarely want to admit to defeat. when things go wrong we tend to think that we can pull through and regain control of the situation. And usually we are right! But it takes time for the Coast Guard to launch a helicopter, more time for them to actually find you, and even more time if you aren’t the only boater in distress.

One problem is that today’s EPIRBS make it too easy to call a mayday. Boaters think of it as a magic button which, once pressed, immediately dispatches the calvary. A major failing of the Costa Concordia’s captain was not calling MAYDAY soon enough AND not informing the Coast Guard of the severity of the problem.

The EPIRB is great at telling authorities that you are in trouble and, if it’s equipped with a GPS, you location. But that’s it! Without additional information like the number of people aboard and the nature of the distress the Coast Guard’s response may be too little, too late.

3) Nuisance Alarms

Electronic chart systems are great tools to help keep you from danger but they aren’t foolproof. One major problem is that nuscense alarms (e.g. lost wind data) typically sound the same as major alarms (e.g. depth approaching draft!) and can too easily be ignored.

We don’t know why the Costa Concordia sailed past her turning waypoint, we don’t even know where that waypoint was set, but we do know that the turn was missed. It’s too easy to get distracted on the bridge of a ship or behind the wheel of your boat so don’t allow nuscience alarms to put you in danger. If you need to leave the helm then take a remote display unit (like Raymarine’s E15023 Smart Control Wireless Remote) with you and, by all means, fix problems (like that faulty cable to the wind sensor) before your mind starts to ignore them.

4) Bridge Team

In both marine and air transportation the major finding of incident studies over the past few decades have pointed to one major problem.... the number of inputs exceed our capacity to understand the situation.

Put simply today’s modern system of electronics is great at providing a myriad of information but our brains are poor at absorbing it all. The solution is to divide tasks. Every time you depart for sea it’s important to have someone check your work (course lines, waypoints, etc) and look for problems your brain might ignore. But even more important is, when you run into problems, to have someone help manage the influx of information. This can be as simple as handing someone a handheld VHF and asking them to listen for your boat’s name, or asking someone to keep an eye on the depth sounder.

The point is, during an emergency, have someone check your work and help you reduce the amount of information flowing into your brain.


5) Don’t loose the big picture.

It’s easy to get lost in electronic displays when an emergency is happening. Electronic displays, AIS, EPIRB’s, DSC VHF’s are all important safety items that can save your life but so is your throttle, anchor and manual bailer. Had the Costa Concordia captain backed down on the propellers after missing the turn, had he anchored his vessel after running aground (or even used the anchor to slow his ship down), then less lives would have been lost.

Many believe the captain made the right choice in grounding his damaged vessel after it started taking on water but this was the wrong move.

It’s correct that beaching is standard operating procedure for a sinking vessel and is done safely everyday at Alang and other shipbreakers (Ship Beaching - YouTube). And it serves two major advantages... it brings the vessel closer to shore (which helps in evacuating the passengers) and stabilizes the ship (i.e. keeps it from sinking further).

Part of the reason this works is because the forward momentum "cuts" a deep V into the sand which conforms to the hull... supporting her evenly. The problem here is not that he grounded the ship, but that he grounded it sideways!

Cruise ships ships have a high center of gravity so imagine you're on a sailboat running parallel to shore with wind and current directly on your beam. Now imagine pulling down the sails and hoisting a weight to the top of a sailboat mast. As the wind/current pushed you sideways into the beach she'd certainly list but would remain relatively stable until the keel caught bottom.... at which point she'd topple right over. If he had propulsion then he could have successfully have beached the ship like they do in Alang but with only bow and stern thrusters (if they even worked)... it was a deadly move.

Why did he do this? The answer is not know but evidence suggests that he called the company’s emergency response center after hitting the rock and their suggestion was to ground the vessel. The lesson is that, in today’s age of satellite phones, it’s easy to get advice from experts ashore. But those experts are not aboard your vessel, they don’t have access to the flood of information you do as a captain.

The captain was criticized for managing the emergency, via the use of sat phones and handheld VHF’s, from the comfort of a lifeboat. And rightly so! The lesson here is that new communication tools are effective tools in emergencies at sea but do not replace the experience of a captain calling the shots from the bridge of his ship... or wheelhouse of his yacht!

[Astrid]

Addressing #4 & 5, this is why warships have a combat information center--to evaluate and filter information so the captain can have a clear picture of the situation without having to sift through everything himself.

[HappySeagull]

...What I still don't get is the Costa's initial choice of course ..."aiming" for the wrong side of the point it looks like... as a "flyby" or "buzz the town" airplane analogy, it's as though you'd aimed for the wrong side of a radio tower outside of town to do your ground-loop instead of aiming to have it under your belly as you looped...



It's been said he was a hot-dogger but not a very good one, apparently.
Maybe he was expecting less drift. Maybe there's more tide there than I'd think or more wind...distracted by the wheelhouse chatter? and couldn't say...Silenzio! No glasses doesn't help. Cripes.

[hellosailor]

Cofferdam, high tech cutting tools...ROFLMAO.

This is first and foremost simply a matter of economics. High tech is not cheap. Bringing in a boatload of peons with chisels is cheap. guess which one will be done?

Likewise, the decision to scrap versus repair is all economics. Carnival has 3(?) new ships coming online in the next year and the market is down, so there will be overcapacity. When there's overcapacity you get rid of the dead wood first, and old ships that will have ghosts lingering about them is very dead wood.

I'd hate to even think about what the engineers would charge to do a proper survey, to see which frames had shifted and how far, so that REAL salvage could be estimated. As opposed to "just bang 'er out and slap on some paint" in some third world port.

Odds are that they could sell the salvage rights to some eastern group that would try to refloat it and use it, but that would still leave people saying "Oh, that's the old..." if something happened again in the future.

"Overloaded ferry sinks in Elbonia, 500 lost at sea. Former Carnival cruise ship...." no there's a real dollar value in making sure that never happens.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Cofferdam, high tech cutting tools...ROFLMAO.

This is first and foremost simply a matter of economics. High tech is not cheap. Bringing in a boatload of peons with chisels is cheap. guess which one will be done?

Likewise, the decision to scrap versus repair is all economics. Carnival has 3(?) new ships coming online in the next year and the market is down, so there will be overcapacity. When there's overcapacity you get rid of the dead wood first, and old ships that will have ghosts lingering about them is very dead wood.

I'd hate to even think about what the engineers would charge to do a proper survey, to see which frames had shifted and how far, so that REAL salvage could be estimated. As opposed to "just bang 'er out and slap on some paint" in some third world port.

Odds are that they could sell the salvage rights to some eastern group that would try to refloat it and use it, but that would still leave people saying "Oh, that's the old..." if something happened again in the future.

"Overloaded ferry sinks in Elbonia, 500 lost at sea. Former Carnival cruise ship...." no there's a real dollar value in making sure that never happens.

You forget this vessel is in EU waters, this is not India. The environmental requirements and stipulations will be enormous. The costs will be eye watering high. If she is to be broken up on site the methodology will have to be to the highest environmental standards. This will not be done with peons and chisels.

Dave

[MacG]

Dave is absolutely right here. Carnival is very shrewd to sell the salvage rights in order to avoid any responsibilities when the wreck has to be removed. In the very beginning I guessed to take a year for the whole operation but now I see how very slowly things are proceeding I may add another one year.

One of the biggest (Holland) operators in cruises cut all the contracts with Costa, and it is one of the issues to push down any news publicly, for obvious reasons.

There is no equipment available to remove the wreck in one single piece. The boat has to be cut up. That cannot be done without breaking some eggs as Dave said already.
So there will be a substantial spill of wastes. Of course they can empty the hull but that will take a long time too. I am sure that the next season the boat will still be there .....