Concordia Disaster on TV 8PM Tonight

[binch]

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I agree with Minn.
Complete picture is as yet not known, but I suspect the ship rolled and turned due to interaction with the shallows following striking reef while under full power.
I have personally investigated similar accidents. One where a ship touched port side rounding a bend in the Great Bitter Lakes (I was a Suez Canal Pilot at the time). She swung round sharply to port heeling to starboard and then rolled the other way and ended up on the sand .

After my experiences in the Suez Canal, I persuaded the Admiralty to lend me a destroyer and we carried out experiments in sharp turning in shallow water.(off the coast of Libya) We had to call off the experiments because the ship (HMS Childers) heeled twice as much as we had estimated and the Captain lost his nerve.
So did I.

 

[Kukri]

Bits of ship adhering to a rock off Le Scole have been photographed by divers and the UKHO have not issued a chart correction...

So I think we may assume that the rock was correctly charted...

 

[Richard Shead]

I think the 'who's to blame' chestnut has a) been done to death on here and other places and b) will only be for the enquiry/legal process to decide.

What struck me though was the responsiblity folk like the dancers have for the evacuation of passengers. I was thinking how on an aircraft, I would trust the hostesses to act with clear, firm, professional orders of what to do in an emergency... they are clearly trained to look after your safety (and serve drinks/food whilst everything's going to plan). It's also pretty clear to me that air hostesses are quite at ease being on a plane. Compare that to the dancers on Costa Concordia, one of whom was even scared witless of being on the water. I can't think I would have felt secure following their orders... competent dancers no doubt, but in charge of hundreds of evacuees???

Not all of them, the mother of my daughter was an In Flight Supervisor for a company with a red tail and she was scared shipless of flying... but cloud clear the entire plane in no time at all.

 

[Boomshanka]

Not all of them, the mother of my daughter was an In Flight Supervisor for a company with a red tail and she was scared shipless of flying... but cloud clear the entire plane in no time at all.

At least that's better than the other way round Can't imagine taking a job involving flying if you were petrified of being aloft!

 

[Kukri]

The sinking of the Epirotiki cruise ship OCEANOS off South Africa was a case in which the Greek Master, officers and crew abandoned ship without telling the passengers and the passengers were all evacuated sucessfully by the British entertainers, so I am not going to knock the competence of cruise ship entertainers.

 

[Boomshanka]

To clarify, as one who used to have responsibility for a much smaller (520 passenger) cruise ship - only those who have received the specfied training and who hold "lifeboat certificates" may operate the lifeboats. These may, and usually do, include members of the hotel staff but they are trained, they have been examinedm they have practiced, they are just as competent to lower and take command of a lifeboat as, say, a greaser.

The reason is that the marine crew is relatively small in number - there are not enough career "seamen" to go round.

Now, what to do with the rest of the hotel staff and the dancers, photographers, puppeteers, shop assistants and so on? Best make then useful so we give them jobs like tallying passenger numbers, pointing the way to muster stations, knocking on cabin doors to make sure nobody has missed the announcement and so on.

It's just common sense.

One of the dancers on the programme had to go back to her cabin to get a pen/pencil so that she could fill out the lifeboat/roster thingy... just struck me that they didn't seem prepared for what happened (says he from the comfort of his chair in front of a PC)

 

[Cruiser2B]

The flooding:

As the ship continued to take water, she developed an angle of loll, reported as initially a heel to port.

According to the evidence of the witnesses in the Channel Four documentary, the ship rolled to starboard as she grounded for the second and last time.

I liked your summary, but for a couple of points. the first is your terminology. I'm sure you know this, and are just being expedient, but you are confusing loll and heel for list. Of course, loll eventually developed, but only as the GM became negative.
The second point, and this is the one I have a hard time with - you're saying a ship, listing to port, touched bottom on its starboard side and then started listing to starboard. It is very hard to believe that the entire well-flooded port side of the ship lifted out of the water pivoting on the fulcrum created by the starboard side being hard aground. Imo the only way it could have capsized as it did, was for it to have been severely listing to starboard prior to grounding.

 

[Kukri]

I liked your summary, but for a couple of points. the first is your terminology. I'm sure you know this, and are just being expedient, but you are confusing loll and heel for list. Of course, loll eventually developed, but only as the GM became negative.
The second point, and this is the one I have a hard time with - you're saying a ship, listing to port, touched bottom on its starboard side and then started listing to starboard. It is very hard to believe that the entire well-flooded port side of the ship lifted out of the water pivoting on the fulcrum created by the starboard side being hard aground. Imo the only way it could have capsized as it did, was for it to have been severely listing to starboard prior to grounding.

Cruiser - I am indeed saying that she had developed a loll, meaning that when upright the GM would have been negative, eventually. With a great deal of free surface in the flooding compartments, a loll seems highly probable. I agree that initially she would have heeled.

There are passenger videos which show the ship upright as people assembed at muster stations. So she had SOLAS 90 type stability at that point... later, she lost it.

If we assume that the bulkhead deck is below the lower of the two lines of windows below the boat deck, then by the time she lowered the starboard boats she had flooded beyond the bulkhead deck. By the time the boats had gone she was about to immerse the edge of the boat deck...

On the second point, the witnesses in the Channel Four programme said that she rolled from port to starboard as she grounded.

I have the same problem with this that you do - why would the ship roll uphill?

But that is what they said. Attempting to account for it, I cautiously suggest that:

(a) with a 12knot breeze broad on the port beam, the ship would have generated a certain amount of sideways momentum

(b) the water in the flooding compartments would slosh over to starboard as she struck

(c) the combination of the wind heel effect, the inertia of the superstructure and the inertia of the free surface water, acting together, combined with the lack of stability, may have been enough to push her over the other way.

A simpler and probably better explanation is that the ship heeled to port as she struck the rock, then came upright, and as she developed negative GM she developed a loll, which was to starboard, due to wind heel, and which increased quite rapidly due to ground effect after she stranded.

With free surface and a loll, it would not matter where she stranded - so long as she continued to flood, the heel would increase.

But your ideas are certainly as good as mine, and probably better.

 

[Kukri]

I agree with Minn.
Complete picture is as yet not known, but I suspect the ship rolled and turned due to interaction with the shallows following striking reef while under full power.
I have personally investigated similar accidents. One where a ship touched port side rounding a bend in the Great Bitter Lakes (I was a Suez Canal Pilot at the time). She swung round sharply to port heeling to starboard and then rolled the other way and ended up on the sand .

After my experiences in the Suez Canal, I persuaded the Admiralty to lend me a destroyer and we carried out experiments in sharp turning in shallow water.(off the coast of Libya) We had to call off the experiments because the ship (HMS Childers) heeled twice as much as we had estimated and the Captain lost his nerve.
So did I.

Thank you and may I return the compliment by agreeing with you! Very interesting...but scary!

 

[JayBee]

Minn

Very professional and lucid summary - thanks.

 

[Duffer]

Minn - excellent summary!
One point still puzzling me is that if all but three lifeboats were deployed why did so many have to be evacuated via the rope ladder over the port bow?
Perhaps it's just statistics - 95% escaped on liferafts, 95% of those left escaped by other means and the rest perished

Does anyone have anything helpful to say on what equipment these lifeboats carry to facilitate unloading passengers at the nearby port in the dark before returning to the ship to pick up more survivors?

 

[Kukri]

No special equipment; it's not what lifeboats usually have to do. The emphasis is on keeping the occupants safe and on being found. Lifeboat equipment is simple and robust because it must spend years not being used and be able to be used at short notice by non-experts.

 

[Duffer]

I agree with that but we used to have open lifeboats propelled by oars. Now we have motorised lifeboats that offer more protection from the elements. Perhaps the time has come to have basic nav aids for this sort of situation including e.g. VHF, basic chartplotter, AIS transponder, depth sounder so that someone can take the helm and navigate to the nearby port in tha dark or fog with confidence and if appropriate return to pick up more passengers. They could also be more easily located and communicated with by SAR authorities.

Modern lifeboats must cost tens of thousands so the cost of basic electronics would only add £1000 or thereabouts and could potentially save many lives.

 

[Sailfree]

Does anyone have anything helpful to say on what equipment these lifeboats carry to facilitate unloading passengers at the nearby port in the dark before returning to the ship to pick up more survivors?

IIRC the "lifeboats" on the QM2 took about 220 max passengers plus a number designated places (12?) of crew (in addition to the crew working the lifeboat).

On QM2 they doubled as tenders for the ports the ship could not get into draught? limited docking capacity (often ports in the caribbean already had 3 cruise ships in port!). As tenders these lifeboats had ramps/gangplanks for wheelchairs and ease of access. I was never on one in the dark but believe they had internal lights

I assume other cruise ships lifeboats are often used in a similar manner. I would comment though that the crews tender handling was terrible and as the hull underside was a catamaran with two props I could only assume it was lack of or bad training. Berthing consisted often of ramming and crew grabbing and manhandling the tender alongside even when it was a beam wind blowing them into the quay!!!

 

[trapezeartist]

Thanks God because he invented the English with their perfect legal system and fine language.

I said nothing about the English legal system. (Don't get me started! )

 

[Bajansailor]

Here are a couple of interesting articles about Costa Concordia on the Workboat website :

http://www.workboat.com//Blogs/Inte...nks&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=InformzNews

http://www.workboat.com//Blogs/Regu...nks&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=InformzNews

I also think that the crew did an amazing job of getting so many of the passengers and crew off the vessel safely, and will endorse Minn's comments all through this thread, absolutely.

I have witnessed (with my surveyor's hat on) quite a few passenger lifeboat drills on relatively 'small' (less than 1,000 pax) cruise ships, and they were performed like clockwork. Hopefully if they ever have to do it in real life, it would be the same.

Conversely, I have also been a passenger once on a 'large' (3,500 pax) cruise ship, and was rather dismayed by the passenger lifeboat drill that was carried out - it seemed to be totally chaotic, with the Cruise Director in charge of proceedings.
Thankfully we didn't have to abandon ship in anger during that week!

 

[Sybarite]

I agree it would be perfectly understandable if Captain Schettino fell to pieces, but, if the ship was turned round and stranded outside the port of Giglio under his control, it would seem that he kept his cool and was in command of all his skills.

.

The captain said as a mitigating point that he beached the ship.

However if you look at the AIS course which has previously been shown here, the ship turned to starboard (ie away from the coast) and slowed down to almost stop at nearly 180° to its original course and parallel to the coast. It would appear that the boat then drifted into the shore, still parallel and apparently being pushed by the wind.

That does not sound to me like a deliberate beaching.

 

[Kukri]

The captain said as a mitigating point that he beached the ship.

However if you look at the AIS course which has previously been shown here, the ship turned to starboard (ie away from the coast) and slowed down to almost stop at nearly 180° to its original course and parallel to the coast. It would appear that the boat then drifted into the shore, still parallel and apparently being pushed by the wind.

That does not sound to me like a deliberate beaching.

I agree with your interpretation. The ship drifted ashore, beam on to the 12 knot NE'ly wind.

Further, I think that it was the second grounding that cost the lives lost.

Modern passenger ships are designed with a good deal of care to remain upright and stable for long enough to disembark all the passengers and crew.

If you let the ship go aground whilst she is continuing to flood then grounding reaction enters into the equation and she may very well become unstable.

The old adage "never go aground with an anchor in the pipe" applies here.