In this day and age how does a ship with every nav aid hit a reef leaving port? There were no reports of fog or bad weather. Sand bars drift around a bit and in the Carribean I can almost understand an occasional grounding and a ship having to be tugged off a sand bar but to hit a charted reef and tear a 100 meter long hole is a case of gross negligence. I wonder what the Captains excuse is going to be.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I've asked my brother, a seaman with a 40 years sailing experience, who was the Chief Mate of the Michelangelo liner and has commanded container ships and he told me he had sailed that passage hundreds of times always keeping off coast. You don't bring a ship of that size close to a coast. Why was it done? Incompetence and lack of common sense,he said. Hubris, I would say. This is a sad day for all Italian seamen and for Italy, because of a single man's folly. The officer on duty is not guilty, he had obeyed his captain's orders.
Tullio

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One word answer: Testosterone.

Refusal to obey safety regulations for the purpose of thrill.

The captain didn't intend to hit the reef and kill people but he is guilty of manslaughter and should spend a lot of time behind bars. As the ship wasn't a naval vessel I don't know if the crew can get charged with following an illegal order. The owner of the ship should be responsible for allowing this and not having in place a system to know it was going on. News reports said it was common practice to get too close. Why wasn't the liner company looking at the black box to see that the captain wasn't on the right course? Every time this idiot sailed her too close his crew should have reported him, if they didn't they are as guilty as the captain. Intentionally hazarding a vessel.

As to the reports that the crew had no clue what to do in an emergency, well, the liner company should spend time behind bars. There is no excuse to not train your employees and drill them regularly.

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By tradition, the Captain is the ship's master after God. I agree that at least the Chief Mate should have protested seeing a dangerous route being followed. But not all men are willing to risk their careers. Think of the Starbuck/Achab confrontation in Moby Dick.
Tullio

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I know only this: had my brother been on that deck, the ship would be safe. But he is now a pensioner. Today's seamen and pilots rely too much on their electronic gadgets and lack common sense.
Tullio

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The black box will tell the truth. Intentional hazarding of a vessel.

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Carnival seems to have a lot of problems running into things ...
http://www.cruisebruise.com/Carnival_Ecstasy_Severe_Listing_April_21_2010.html
http://www.cruisebruise.com/Mike_Groves/Costa_collision_costa-alot_of_money.html

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One of the questions that will have to be answered is.Why did it roll over so quickly.

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Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care

A bigger question to ask is how much can she list and still operate her lifeboats? That was one of the issues with the Titanic so there is no excuse to not abandon ship before she reaches that point. It sounds like from some media reports some of the lifeboats did tip enough from scraping the sides to put people in the water.

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The odd thing is that it appears to have been damaged below the waterline on the port side, yet it has toppled over onto its starboard side......

After "the oops" the Captain intentionally beached her. An uneven bottom and/or an incoming tide is the reason she rolled that direction. Unless the Captain ordered too much counter flooding ...

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looks like a healthy dose of incompetence all around.
norwegian cruse lines where were the norwegians ?? lifeboats could have been launched in a matter of minutes ??

I can't believe they didn't have operating depth finding gear on board that would warn of a rising bottom. On the sailboat I used to crew on we sailed fairly close to the shore but my eyes were always checking the depth finder to be sure no surprizes met us suddenly.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

... Apparently a list of 25 degrees is the point of no return for a ship...

That depends on what vessel. The "25 degrees" is likely more a 'convenience' for assuming people will not be still standing if the decks are tilted any steeper, and also for easing (making cheaper) the lifeboat launch design.


Looking at the ship's course, a good question is whether the ship started listing first, or whether the captain's turn to port to go towards the coast caused the flooding to slosh over to starboard to then cause the listing... An English Channel ferry famously rapidly capsized due to a turn causing a flooded deck to slosh to one side to then heave the boat over within seconds (ferry design was changed afterwards).

Do passenger ship designs include watertight compartments to protect against severe flooding?


Also note for this story that passenger ship captains have to be almost superhuman to juggle safety versus schedule politics... The gash looks like the ship was running at full speed...

Cheers,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Also note for this story that passenger ship captains have to be almost superhuman to juggle safety versus schedule politics... The gash looks like the ship was running at full speed...

That applies to airline pilots too...

I am sure she was at full speed. And the cruise company now says intentionality off the pre-programmed course. Question, was someone trying to save time and fuel, or was it sheer idiocy?

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One of the questions that will have to be answered is.Why did it roll over so quickly.

These type ships have very shallow drafts, this particular one has a draft
of only 25 foot. So once it sank down 25 feet it then was resting on the
shallow sea bed, the depth here was only around 50 foot. So on touching
the sea bed it then rolled over on it's side.

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The Kite Fliers

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Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

Smit Tak will get her off and into port. It is gonna be expensive though.

The Captain had been warned before about cruising too close to shore. He did it to wow the passengers and those on shore by cruising close at night with the entire ship lit up and the passengers seeing the lights on the mainland.

This captain sailed from Marseille on December 17 with a 60 knots gale. His officers were opposed, but he was the Captain.
Tullio

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Yes, Russian roulette.

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Yes, Russian roulette.

Правда! That´s true!

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