sinking of the Concordia on ch4 now

[prv]

I have sailed on Stavros a couple of times as one of the volunteer crew, and one of my jobs was opening and closing the W/T doors whenever we were entering or leaving a port or anchorage.

That's interesting - they close them from the bridge these days after a tannoy announcement to stand clear. The doors move so slowly and the sirens and flashing lights are so un-ignorable that it's hard to imagine any risk of someone getting caught by one.

We do a demo as part of the first-day drills so everyone knows what it's like when they close, and we emphasise strongly the rule against trying to go through a door once the siren starts sounding. Each one also now has a charming MCA poster next to it with a picture of a heavily bloodstained jacket, taken from the MAIB report of a watertight door accident on a merchant ship a few years ago. Just what you want to see next to your bunk every morning

Despite all the above, I can see that on a cruise liner local control rather than remote from the bridge is a good idea. We were once berthed among the cruise ships at Madeira, with their self-loading cargo ambling past us all day, and I wouldn't trust some of those people to get out of the way of a moving door even as it closed onto their leg

She only has 3 watertight doors along her length on the accommodation deck, but they would each take a few minutes to manually close - I had ear plugs, as the siren was right next to my lughole while pressing the closing button......

Schoolboy error - the levers work from both sides, so if you're doing the demo (when they are operated manually) you always want to stand on the side away from the siren

Pete

 

[Spyro]

Most surprising bit for me was the footage from the bridge. The captain didn't seem in charge and was being encouraged by other officers to make decisions.
Also there didn't seem to be any advice coming from down below in the bowels to say exactly what the situation was.

 

[Fire99]

Most surprising bit for me was the footage from the bridge. The captain didn't seem in charge and was being encouraged by other officers to make decisions.
Also there didn't seem to be any advice coming from down below in the bowels to say exactly what the situation was.

Well I wasn't there so only saw what all the other TV viewers saw, but 'shambles' springs to mind.

 

[Greenheart]

Interesting stuff, thanks for those answers. My thoughts were late-night ramblings, in hopeful pursuit of a theoretical design that, according to basic physics of buoyancy, mightn't have let Titanic, Costa Concordia, or others, sink.

In a strange way, it's rather a relief to believe that no hull could have, or will in future, be safer than her master's competence and foresight allow for. I mean that it removes all possible chance of unsinkability being assumed - though if that has hitherto been understood absolutely amongst captains, it hardly seems to have instilled due caution.

Surely Spyro's point bears repeating - why, aboard so sophisticated and modern a vessel, was the extent of the damage not immediately made known on the bridge, and the inevitability of the necessity to abandon ship, so delayed?

 

[Poignard]

. . . and the inevitability of the necessity to abandon ship, so delayed?

One minute you're steaming along, master of a fine ship, well-paid, admired, reponsible, good career ahead of you, showing off a bit perhaps. Next minute your life's in ruins, people are dying, your fine ship is badly damaged, everybody hates you, you're in deep doodoo and it's all your fault. Difficult to quickly adjust to the change in circumstances, I suppose.

 

[NickRobinson]

Quoting Futurama..

Groening's offshoot of the Simpson's has a character saying (of a space oil tanker wreck) "Oh no, it's pierced all 86 of it's double hulls.... If only they'd fitted 87!"....

My point is that extreme enough damage at some point will stop a steel ship floating.

You can minimise but not remove risk. Looking into that hole into multiple decks was astonishing, like those pics of wartime torpedo damage.

Nick
First time for Futurama on YBW?

 

[Greenheart]

One minute you're steaming along, master of a fine ship, well-paid, admired, reponsible, good career ahead of you, showing off a bit perhaps. Next minute your life's in ruins, people are dying, your fine ship is badly damaged, everybody hates you, you're in deep doodoo and it's all your fault. Difficult to quickly adjust to the change in circumstances, I suppose.

According to that supposition (and it sounds likely), Schettino was more bon-viveur than appropriately in-touch professional.

Which of us who contribute here on yachting subjects, cannot recall a time when relaxed, self-assured jollity aboard a boat might have led to ghastly ill-preparation of mind, if fate had put trouble ahead?

But when deliberately skirting a rocky shoal, what kind of competent captain wouldn't be on full alert, prepared for the worst?

I imagine it's natural for chaps in authority to fall from a state of due diligence, over years without incident...but is there no ongoing review - like an Admiralty Board - that obliges senior officers to stay in touch with the possible requirements of their station?

 

[trapezeartist]

Anybody know when the report on Concordia's loss is due?

"Due" and when it will actually happen might turn out to be two very different things. It's my guess that a report will be issued some time in the next 20 years. Unless it isn't.

 

[Spyro]

"Due" and when it will actually happen might turn out to be two very different things. It's my guess that a report will be issued some time in the next 20 years. Unless it isn't.

People died though. Some one will have to be brought to Justice. I'm sure the families of the deceased will be pushing for that.

 

[BrianH]

According to that supposition (and it sounds likely), Schettino was more bon-viveur than appropriately in-touch professional.
Which of us who contribute here on yachting subjects, cannot recall a time when relaxed, self-assured jollity aboard a boat might have led to ghastly ill-preparation of mind, if fate had put trouble ahead?
But when deliberately skirting a rocky shoal, what kind of competent captain wouldn't be on full alert, prepared for the worst?
I imagine it's natural for chaps in authority to fall from a state of due diligence, over years without incident...but is there no ongoing review - like an Admiralty Board - that obliges senior officers to stay in touch with the possible requirements of their station?

I am reminded of another, at the moment very topical, incident and an earlier comment by the master:

"In all my years at sea, I never was in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."
(Capt. E.J. Smith, RMS Titanic, 1907) ​

 

[Greenheart]

Perhaps we may assume that aboard ships where millions are spent on lifeboats, liferafts etc, by far the greatest cause of danger and death, is the master's total unreadiness for situations arising, in circumstances which only occur after the master has shown myopic daftness in his action/choices?

Idiotic risk-taking, revealing total ill-preparedness.

What a mess. I suppose there's no voluntarily-agreed, regular requirement in international law, that puts every ship's officer in a mock-disaster scenario, so the real thing doesn't leave 'em walking in confused circles, or tripping and 'falling' into lifeboats?

 

[haydude]

Most surprising bit for me was the footage from the bridge. The captain didn't seem in charge and was being encouraged by other officers to make decisions.
Also there didn't seem to be any advice coming from down below in the bowels to say exactly what the situation was.

Did you watch the original non edited video and do you understand Italian and the different regional Italian dialects, accents and idioms perfectly or did you watch the edited video with poorly translated subtitles?

 

[Spyro]

Did you watch the original non edited video and do you understand Italian and the different regional Italian dialects, accents and idioms perfectly or did you watch the edited video with poorly translated subtitles?

In the title of the post it says "On channel 4 now" so that is the one I watched I don't know which version it was.
What is your point?