Last voyage for Costa Concordia cruise ship

I imagine that topic came up.

 

Your question regarding SOLAS 2009 (probabilistic damage stability rules which is now the "standard" for vessels built after 01/01/2009) is quite interesting and of utmost importance. In my opinion nobody at time can answer you ! Supporters of SOLAS 2009 will tell you that these rules are better... but for ro-ro passenger vessels (ferries) there is a scientific controversy about it. Some people are considering that "old" deterministic rules (SOLAS 90) plus Stockholm agreement give better safety level. That the reason why European Union has decided to maintain both system of rules for ferry design (SOLAS 90+Stockholm agreement together with SOLAS 2009)...which means a lot of calculations for designers.

Double hull would have been efficient only if transversal penetration of damage is lower than "double hull" longitudinal bulkhead (inner bulkhead). If you are facing a high energy collision (which looks to be the case for Costa Concordia) I wonder if double hull would have been sufficient...

Francois-Xavier Nettersheim

 

Does a double skin really help incompetent masters and should it.?

Maybe 3 skins.

 

What I am learning is I want to sail with Yobarnacle next time. I think the interesting story to come out under further investigation is not ship construction (futility of design to protect against high speed collision with known rock) but crew actions afterward. NavSIm track shows ship coasting to a stop, barely under control, then perhaps someone thought of bow thruster and beaching. Interesting news item from Deputy Mayor of town who boarded ship after grounding, assisted rescue, and found only one very junior officer on bridge,'a kid'. Not just Capt but all the officers gave up here and sounds like Costa management is deep in it too.

 

When Schettino realized and accepted that Concordia was sinking (second passenger was bent to port) made it aground, steering abeam.
After 20 minutes, according to witnesses, the ship bowed to port.
In approaching bent to starboard, almost certainly for the morphology of the fund.

 

Indeed. Too bad we can't impose some sort of regime ensuring all captains are as thoughtful and prudent. My father and grandfather spent their lives on coastal freighters and ferries, and had an endless supply of stories of near misses due to arrogant/intoxicated captains. My favorite - tied up in port on an old steamer, with a hurricane passing by. Storm surge in the harbour was so great that lines were snapping off. 3am - in the process of running more lines ashore when the captain came back from a bar, calls them off for running more lines and orders steam to be raised. They leave port, nearly capsize several times, all deck cargo, life boats etc. washed away, most below decks cargo destroyed. Somehow they manage to turn around and get back in. Ran lots of lines and started to clean up the mess.

 

When I lived on Guam many years ago there was an interesting case involving the collision of a tanker and a cargo ship that partially blocked the entrance to Apra Harbor. I think in the end each shipping company was held equally liable, but the US Navy cleaned it all up. It is probably all explained here but I have not waded through all the legal language to figure it out.

 

Legitimate doubt, that should be exceeded when construction of a ship begun.

I do a silly example: 2 questions:
The sides of a IIWW battleship would have resisted ?
If not, the leak would have been 70 meters?

Even if the questions are provocative to the ridiculous (walled 300 mm), I remind you that on cruise ships, there are thousands of people ....

 

Thankyou for the confidence Arch99

http://www.freightercruises.com/

I don't lump all cruise captains with Schettino, nor all Italians.
He is all alone in his misery.
For those who don't want to be among 4000 other passengers on a floating hotel, there are options. I posted a link above. There are many similar links. Many freighters have large comfortable accomodations for upto 6 passengers. You'll dine at the captains table every day, though he may have already eaten and left.
You have to do without the casino and floor show. Usually there is a steward assigned to the passengers who doubles as bar tender.

 

Yah...my captains quarters is civilized...bit small , so it doesnt conform to MLC but Im happy 200 days a year. Barnacle, are your cabins MLC compliant ?

 

Half the passengers on a cruise ship are drunk.

You will never ever make a jumbo cruise ship full of drunks safe.... Only limit the casualties.

Very few casualities on the Costa and those can be attribted to poor operational procedures.

 

Yes, it's ECDIS chart. Or more precisely, I should say that it's an s-57 Electronic Navigational Chart (encrypted to s-63 format) released by Italian Hydrographic Office - the only electronic official chart for this region.