Costa Concordia (Titanic 2012)

[[32511]]

I don't think theres any suggestion he did a 1.5 mile U turn from NW of his resting place.

Divers have found hulll plating east of the islets in the SE corner, putting it 95m from the shore there, so I think not.

It would be interesting to see if the nearest rock in this picture is still there..
This is just to the east of the two islets.

 

[sailorman]

If I'd paid for a cruise, I'd love the ship to be passing an island when I was looking out of the restaurant windows. (Was it a fullish moon? I think it was.)

But that's not my point. My point is that I bet Cruise Captains can deviate from their basic route at will and that is what the term Navigazione Turistica means. Costa imply otherwise.

All conjecture on my part.

i guess the ships are really "stooging about" from port to the nxt port overnight @ relativly low speeds anyway to arrive after breakfast for the excersion trips ashore

 

[MapisM]

I also wonder if time will reveal a different picture of the Captain's abandonment of the boat before everyone was off? I'd like to know how many were still on and if he followed the company "abandon ship" procedure to the end.
I have a feeling we might find he left after his work was done, but while some stragglers were still finding their way off the boat.

I wish your feeling was right, but I'm afraid it isn't.
The phone call between the Livorno coast guard commander in charge of the rescue operations and the ship captain found its way on the web. I mean, not just the transcript, also the recording.
And trust me, it's bloodcurdling.
As photodog said, the behaviour of this man has brought shame to the entire Italian merchant fleeet.
Which didn't deserve that, I hasten to add.

 

[Capt Popeye]

re 'Sail past' being the poss norm !

few years ago a Ship, sailing the 'Inside Passage' in BC sank, with loss of life

I sailed the same route next year, and noticed that the Captain advised Passengers of various interesting views on land, including wild animals, but made the point that the Ship 'was not going to deviate from the main channel to enable a 'closer view / sighting) for passangers.

perhaps it had become the norm to sail close inshore to give passengers a closer look ?

but now stricktly 'verboden'

 

[lenseman]

According to the Italian press, they've found bits of metal from the ship just east of the outermost rock (Le Scole). Which would have put the ship 92 metres from the shore, inside the area in which powered craft are forbidden...!

Errrm?

The outermost rock from the shore is 275metres and located at: 42° 21.335'N 010° 55.814'E when measured from the shore at 42° 21.371'N 010° 55.622'E

The 10 metre depth contour extends fully to 303 metres out from the shore to point 42° 21.331'N 010° 55.836'E

The gap between the two islets at the high-water mark is only 79.6 metres wide.
The maximum depth between the islets is 10 metres
This 10 metre contour is only 5.76 metres wide,
The 5 metre contour between the islets is 57.8 metres wide.

There is a further unidentified "Obstruction" on my chart at 42° 21.292'N 010° 55.842'E - "Position Unknown", Depth: 9.8metres! This obstruction is SSE of the outermost rocks mentioned above, distance 89.4 metres away.

The Costa Concordia has a draught of 8.20 metres and has a beam of 35.5 metres!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia

These depths and measurements are all from the chart published by the Istituto Idrografico della Marina with corrections to 19 SEP 2007.

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

I wish your feeling was right, but I'm afraid it isn't.
The phone call between the Livorno coast guard commander in charge of the rescue operations and the ship captain found its way on the web. I mean, not just the transcript, also the recording.

I heard it on the news but I hadn't heard it when I offered that conjecture. It really does *sound* like the evacuation was in full swing, doesn't it. (I'd still be interested in knowing an estimate of how many people were behind him, and what role he should have been performing at the point when he got off according to standard procedure.)

EDIT: Changed my mind back. In that recording it's not clear that there was an ongoing evacuation in progress. Just some people climbing down a ladder. Would it really have made sense to the Captain to climb up that ladder? People would have needed to stop descending to allow him up. My view is if there was an ongoing evacuation of the ship in progress, he should have been on board. There's no advantage in his remaining while a few stragglers make their way off. One man can never search the whole ship, nor would it be wise to do so. I got the feeling the CG was just trying to put him on the spot. I've returned to seriously wondering if the evacuation was over at the point and he was effectively one of the last people off the boat. All conjecture still.

 

[photodog]

re 'Sail past' being the poss norm !

few years ago a Ship, sailing the 'Inside Passage' in BC sank, with loss of life

I sailed the same route next year, and noticed that the Captain advised Passengers of various interesting views on land, including wild animals, but made the point that the Ship 'was not going to deviate from the main channel to enable a 'closer view / sighting) for passangers.

perhaps it had become the norm to sail close inshore to give passengers a closer look ?

but now stricktly 'verboden'

LOADS of ships lost in the Inside Passage...

I suspect you are referring to the "Queen of the North" accident in the mid 00's... She was running at 17knots at night and failed to make a turn... running up onto Gill Island... 2 people are now thought to have died... (Though there is a bit of mystery about this as the two passengers.. a husband and wife... were reported ashore.... and their bodies have never been found...)

In the Seymour Narrows there used to be a rock... "Ripple Rock" in the middle of the channel... It was something like 2 meters below sea level at low tide..

and between 1875 and 1958 it was hit by at least 100 ships... resulting in the deaths of 110 people...

Eventually in 1958 the situation had become so serious that the BC government decided to blow the damn thing up.... 1270 tons of explosives created one of the largest non-nuclear explosion on record.

 

[nigel1]

I also wonder if time will reveal a different picture of the Captain's abandonment of the boat before everyone was off? I'd like to know how many were still on and if he followed the company "abandon ship" procedure to the end. I have a feeling we might find he left after his work was done, but while some stragglers were still finding their way off the boat. With people still missing and potentially still alive he could never be last off could he!

So I expect time will reveal a different story. But the fact remains that he drove a ship into an island and he will rightly spend some time in prison and his career will be over. And living with 20 odd deaths on your concience will be all but unbearable, I would think.

.

This is not an invitation for me to get shot down again, but a possible explanation as to his actions after the vessel grounded.
I've been at sea 36 ys since I was 16, and crawled my way up through the hawse pipe to where I am now.
26 yrs have been as skipper, most of that on large tugs, including a few years on salvage tugs, and in those years I think I have seen most of what can wrong at sea.
In my years on salavge, I was involved in quite a few in which lives were lost, the worst being a case with 2 survivors from two ships. In all cases where lives had been lost, the Master of those ships were all affected to some degree or other. Some handled it well, others not so professionally.
In two cases, the Masters were virtually left catatonic, and in another incident with a fire in the hold of a container ship, 3 crew dead, the Master just pretended it never happened, when I boarded the ship, he was putting on his suit getting ready to go ashore.
The captain of the CC could well fall in to this catagory, bit like PTSD I suppose, some sort of defence mechanism against what has happened.

I'm not defending his actions, but on the other hand, just like to offer a possible reason for his post disaster behaviour. Career up the swannie, lost $400m of hardware, lives lost, all thats going to take a toll.

Nuff said, time for me to run a few more anchors

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

The captain of the CC could well fall in to this catagory

Useful insight, thanks.

 

[JClarkes]

I know its hopeful but it would be great to see at least one of the missing come out alive.

 

[photodog]

One of the shopping channels... (Ideal World) .. has got "Amazing Cruise Deals" running.... quick tune in!

Good grief.... 14 nights on Thompson... all inclusive... £949 quid!

Thats cheaper than staying at home...

 

[stillwaters]

The rock the Costa Concordia initially hit could well have been the Secca della Croce, about 1.5 M NW of the final resting place.

That would account for the captain saying that the rock was not on his charts, maybe ???

It seems to have been established by now earlier on this thread from a combination of leaked info plus the AIS tracking that is available via marinetraffic etc. that the ship apparently hit the outer (easterly) Le Scole rock a little to the SE of Porto Giglio (the intended fly-past recipient and final resting place) where its speed dropped from around 15 knots to around 6 knots upon impact. From the evidence of the gash in the port side it also seems likely that she was turning to starboard at the time of the impact,bearing in mind that approaching Le Scole from the original course roughly from the SE would have required a turn to starboard at some point. Then according to the AIS she reached a point at least close on a mile NNE of her present location. Bearing in mind that this entailed an approximate northerly course but she was beached pointing approximately south,this summary of her course seems fairly watertight now - a great pity the ship isn't also,though. I only offer this info for anyone who has missed some of this afternoons posts.

 

[photodog]

It seems to have been established by now earlier on this thread from a combination of leaked info plus the AIS tracking that is available via marinetraffic etc. that the ship apparently hit the outer (easterly) Le Scole rock a little to the SE of Porto Giglio (the intended fly-past recipient and final resting place) where its speed dropped from around 15 knots to around 6 knots upon impact. From the evidence of the gash in the port side it also seems likely that she was turning to starboard at the time of the impact,bearing in mind that approaching Le Scole from the original course roughly from the SE would have required a turn to starboard at some point. Then according to the AIS she reached a point at least close on a mile NNE of her present location. Bearing in mind that this entailed an approximate northerly course but she was beached pointing approximately south,this summary of her course seems fairly watertight now - a great pity the ship isn't also,though. I only offer this info for anyone who has missed some of this afternoons posts.

And they have now found bits of ship at that spot 93 meters from the shoreline and inside the bathing area....

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

93 meters from the shoreline

If it wasn't for the deaths, the pollution and the loss of the ship that would actually be funny.

 

[stillwaters]

'navigazione turistica' is to 'navigate' as 'strolling and taking in the sights' is to 'walking to catch the tube'. I think that sums it up.

I think you may have cracked it! So the captain was going to walk to catch the tube,no wonder he got so close in.


Hang on there a minute - which tube did he think ran fromGiglio?

 

[Tidewaiter2]

I heard it on the news but I hadn't heard it when I offered that conjecture. It really does *sound* like the evacuation was in full swing, doesn't it. (I'd still be interested in knowing an estimate of how many people were behind him, and what role he should have been performing at the point when he got off according to standard procedure.)

EDIT: Changed my mind back. In that recording it's not clear that there was an ongoing evacuation in progress. Just some people climbing down a ladder. Would it really have made sense to the Captain to climb up that ladder? People would have needed to stop descending to allow him up. My view is if there was an ongoing evacuation of the ship in progress, he should have been on board. There's no advantage in his remaining while a few stragglers make their way off. One man can never search the whole ship, nor would it be wise to do so. I got the feeling the CG was just trying to put him on the spot. I've returned to seriously wondering if the evacuation was over at the point and he was effectively one of the last people off the boat. All conjecture still.

I spent a lot of last 24hrs(having a stinking cold) looking at the reports from several countries;

One man did try to search the ship- a senior Purser- he went back into the lower decks alone, fell and broke a leg, not found and cas-evacd for 36 hours.
The Captain should have been with him or directing the search effort on board, and thus knowing he'd a man down/unaccounted for.

Seems a lot of the junior rates of most departments on board were lions led by a donkey once again when things went wrong. Not a 100% perhaps, but how else did they get so many off with such a low butchers bill?

 

[MapisM]

I heard it on the news but I hadn't heard it when I offered that conjecture. It really does *sound* like the evacuation was in full swing, doesn't it. (I'd still be interested in knowing an estimate of how many people were behind him, and what role he should have been performing at the point when he got off according to standard procedure.)

Well, it doesn't just sound like the evacuation is still ongoing.
The coast guard officer specifically confirmed that to the ship captain, based on what the rescue boats were reporting, and ordered him to return onboard and assess the situation.
In fact, what you are interested to know is exactly what the captain was in charge to evaluate, to start with.

Then again, I understand what nigel1 said, and his point might well apply also to this case, but that's a different kettle of fish.

 

[RichardS]

It would be interesting to see if the nearest rock in this picture is still there..
This is just to the east of the two islets.

+1

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

One man did try to search the ship- a senior Purser- he went back into the lower decks alone, fell and broke a leg, not found and cas-evacd for 36 hours.
The Captain should have been with him or directing the search effort on board, and thus knowing he'd a man down/unaccounted for.

I think that's makes the case for the exact opposite doesn't it?

 

[photodog]

Seems a lot of the junior rates of most departments on board were lions led by a donkey once again when things went wrong. Not a 100% perhaps, but how else did they get so many off with such a low butchers bill?

This story is just one unbelievable thing after another....

And possibly the most unbelievable is that despite a total screw up of a captain who delayed evacuation... despite the ship turning on her side... despite no lifeboat drill.... It looks like there will be less than 30 people dead out of over 4000 on board.

In reality its almost unbelievable that so few people were killed.

(This is not meant to diminish the losses... just to put it in perspective.)