Last voyage for Costa Concordia cruise ship

The BBC report that the captain is being held on suspicion of manslaughter.

 

Well its obvious that operator blunder caused this tradjdy.

What will be fascinating to observe is the salvage operation.

Last night on shortwave, BBC Africa Service interviewed a group of Salvage divers working the North Sea Oil industry. The scenario facing the divers that they describe was truly nightmarish. The inside of the ship will be awash with suspended or floating material blocking the divers vision and entangling them, as they attempt to navigate thru kilometers of passageways as water surges back and forth in the hull.

 

That corresponds well with the first descriptions from divers who have already entered the ship for the first survey (finding two dead persons close to one muster station).
In one occasion they have allegedly had to take off their jackets and air tanks, pass through tight free passages and then put their equipment on again.

I have done that maneuver few times for drill and for fun in a safe underwater environment, but frankly it is very scary even to think about having to do it in the middle of a dark, sunken and unstable ship with debris floating all around.

 

Don't know the diver's pay rate, but I'd want a raise.

 

The area of Giglio means Sardinia, Corsica, Elba, the Tyrrhenian Islands and coastline. This area is very beautiful and critical to the tourist industry economy.

This is a modern disater . The use of " modern" salvage operation techniques, particularly pollution control, will teach important lessons.

 

Why, when you can use a swathe mapper?

That's a quibble, BTW. Captain hits a rock, he owns the outcome. Captains hate rocks being named after them IME.

PDW

 

Divers get decent pay, but the real money is depth related. The deeper the higher the pay. Sat diving pays highest. (saturated deep diving. Helium oxgen mix, pressurized quarters so they don't decompress till job finished. Decompression can require a week.)
Not getting depth bonus here.

 

Captain may be charged with illegal quarrying in this instance. ******* rock jammed in that ship is bigger than a house.

 

The sinking and salvage will reveal import lessons to naval architects. Concordia is a modern ship.

A naval architect always assumes that Every ship they design will sink, burn..then designs with this in mind. What systems failed to operate as designed ? How did passengers become trapped inside of a slowly sinking ship...procedure or design ? What improvements will be designed into next generation ships ?

 

Perchance it be gold or uranium ore? Bingo! But the company would then claim it or the insurance. Poor cappy!

 

May improve design. Certainly will be cause of greater regulations! More paper work for captains and their company execs.

 

Operation error and design error are different. What design features will be reconsidered.

 

Paperwork is useless when a real-life situation puts half of the total number of lifeboats out of use due to ship heel.

I'm wondering if the SOLAS evacuation procedures and class regulations take into consideration that the vast majority of cruiser ship passengers are 60+ yrs old, with many well over their 70's, and hence not very agile and in good health?

 

In the morning papers here as well and the fact that he abandoned the ship before all the passengers were taken off....

Reminds me of the Oceanos fiasco on our eastern coast during 1990/1? when that ocean liner went down in some bad weather and the Greek captain and crew were one of the first people off the boat and left the passengers to fend for themselves. These actions made headlines all over the world at the time.

I always said after that I would never step on a boat with a Greek Captain and it seems I must add Italian to the list

 

I was just speculating what WILL happen, not what SHOULD happen. Basing on experience what HAS happened after other maritime disasters. Reform in design is slow. New regs get passed relatively quickly.