Costa Concordia, 80 deg list, really scary !!

"I'm surprised to see so much unsubstantiated fear mongering on a boat design forum. People stating their own fears and fear based opinions as fact, and refusing to believe the opinions of those with some knowledge of the subject."

Hawkboat, your compadre Ross Klein, a professor at Canada's Memorial University (a school with a good reputation in our NA circles) says he has counted 21 sinkings since 1980. I don't know the fellow! Is he trying to short the stock too?.

[ Most people on this forum are not trying to shorten the stock but are exchanging info as they realized that very serious safety upgrades need to be implemented on vessel like the CC. Next time my 80 year old mother take her grandchildren on a cruise; I don't want them to have to say the Lord's Prayer and jump overboard to swim back to shore in the dark of night. I know they will not enjoy it. They might even die ?]

By Jill Schensul
Record Columnist, NorthJersey.com

These latest [cruise ship] accidents have to give us at least a little pause.

In fact, when I started digging, I realized that cruise ship accidents may not be as rare as we would like to believe. Ross Klein, a professor at Canada's Memorial University and the man behind the Web site cruisejunkie.com, tracks cruise safety issues and has testified before Congress about them. Klein has counted 21 sinkings of passenger ships around the world since 1980, including cruise liners and major ferry operations; he's also counted 76 incidents of passenger ships that have run aground during that time, including 24 involving big companies such as Carnival, Costa, Cunard, Holland America, Norwegian, Princess and Royal Caribbean.

Surprised? Unless these incidents result in significant numbers of injuries or fatalities, the cruise lines, for the most part, are able to keep them out of the public spotlight. For example, when a Princess cruise ship was hit by a rogue wave July 18, 2006, tilting violently and injuring 93 people after it left Port Canaveral, Fla., it was only the most severe of half a dozen similar incidents in one year.

"You didn't hear about the others because cruise lines aren't required to report such events unless they cause serious injuries or property damage," said Coast Guard spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson.

After the Empress of the North incident, I wondered about the Nordkapp, which had hit something during a cruise in Antarctica just days before I left on a similar cruise. At the time, the cause of the accident was unknown. Since I returned, I found no follow-up, except for a story from a foreign news service questioning whether oil had leaked into the sea.

There had been a swift conclusion to the investigation of the sinking of the Sea Diamond, however. The ship, carrying 1,156 passengers and 391 crew, hit a well-charted reef near the island of Santorini. The captain had blamed sea currents for the accident, but Greece's merchant marine minister concluded that human error was to blame. The captain and five crew members have been charged with negligence.

http://blog.lipcon.com/2007/05/how_safe_is_cruising.html

 

I made my comment about stock shorting directly to powerabout. There are others who are making emotional posts devoid of facts as well - adding 2 and 2 and arriving at 10. My goal isn't to downplay shortcomings in the cruise industry, rather I would like to see the discussion based on hard facts such as the ones you posted. It may well be that the industry needs a shaking up, and design rules need strengthening. I'm all for it.

I admit I haven't dug into this topic enough to make an informed comment on the state of cruise ship design, but from what I've gathered over the years it seems we need more focus on reigning in the companies and some arrogant captains than we do on design. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Yes, Memorial Uni has a great Nav Arch program. Don't know Ross Klein though.

*edit: I read elsewhere that the Sea Diamond sinking was later blamed on inaccurate charts. Two surveys showed a huge discrepancy in depth and location of the shoal.

Also, I would like to see stats comparing the incidence rates of cruise ships compared to other ships, and to other forms of travel, including automobiles. Also of interest would be stats on vessel incidents caused by design flaw vs those caused by human error. If we assume briefly that human error is the leading cause of incidents, can regulation and training correct that problem, or is there further room to create idiot proof designs?

 

ok, smartbight put me onto a good source of info http://www.cruisejunkie.com

If you look at this page Groundings, you will see several groundings that did not result in sinking. The Star Princess stands out as having sustained significant damage that she survived.

 

If anything, Proffessor Klein has been quoted out of context, because he is off by two orders of magnitude.

Perhaps he only considered "cruise ships" as those populated by rich white westerners, instead of all paying passanger vessels. But I would hazard to guess that 1,000-2,000 paying passengers and 200-300 merchant mariners are killed each year at sea from all causes in the 70-80 vessel losses with death that occur each year (mostly due to overloading and lack of government oversight, two items definitely not at work with any major cruise liner.) FWIW IMO reported 142 ships over 100 GRT with 2395 lives lost for 2009, but they exclude losses "such as those involving the high loss of life when sub-standard or overcrowded ships sink while carrying migrants from poor countries or war-torn regions to other countries in search of a better life".

The very few killed here in this unthinkable deliberate act are inconsequential to the number lost in the third world and to the normal hazards of the sea. If you are really concerned about the lives of people at sea you need to stop cut-and-pasting under-informed doom-and-gloom and open your mind to the benifits of bringing political pressure to the place it would do the most good, the insular governments of Africa, southwest & southeast Asia.

 

Thanks for the calm voice of reason, jeh.
I hate to think how many unrecorded boats and lives have been lost by
desperate people trying to make the hazardous trip to Australia over the
last 20 years. Hundreds of deaths have been recorded, but I am certain
many smaller boats have just sunk without trace.

 

I think those measures were taken after the Estonia disaster 1994 which could have been prevented* if it was done after the Herald of Free Enterprise 1987.

Cheers,
Angel

P.S. - Here an aside about it in an other thread in some posts spreaded from #11 till #26.

* same for the Salem Express 1991 in post#90​

 

Not really following to closely here, but lets not forget entire crews (15 - 20 people) are lost every month or two to deep sea freighter sinkings. Those are complete losses, far off-shore and, apparently acceptable in the big picture. The "cost" of doing business.

-Tom

 

Yep, anyone who thinks being at sea is safe should go read the Cargo Law Trasnport loss website. http://www.cargolaw.com/gallery.html Besides the Costa Concordia here is a sample from the last two months.

Thats 23 known dead and 131 missing in the last two months

 

I was talking to a few guys from that big Insurance get together in Monaco every year ( 20 years ago)
thay all said 100,000 tons of shipping goes down every month

 

What happened to Costa Concordia is really disturbing... How those people who worked on it be so irresponsible and inattentive to the vessel's condition? I'm deeply depressed.

 

There were 'Guardian Angels' on board that really helped save lives:

Report By: Nina Rai

Savona, Italy 20 Jan., 2012

http://www.allvoices.com/contribute...-costa-concordia-captains-actions-disgraceful
Source: Telegraph.co.uk

 

One of the best & most detailed report (so far) in English on the 'Kreuzfahrt in die Katastropphe'. = Cruising into a Catastrophe. 4 parts; A must read!

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,810761-3,00.html

Source: Der Spiegel

 

Thanks smartbight. It would be interesting if someone showed weight distribution and CG during the accident on a front view to the graphic at http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/bild-810761-307188.html

 

If you build it long enough, tall enough, make it lighter, fancier, with all the latest electronics, and you save money on bulkheads and watertight compartments, plate thickness, then give it to a fool to command... It will sink and kill people.

Remember the captains comments.... It is dark, where the hell was the emergency lighting on a separate battery circuit. Oh, they probably saved some money there.

 

This is the question in this thread. Was the Costa Concordia sufficiently stable or not? Either it was extraordinary bad luck to beach the ship on a rock outcropping or dropoff causing it to tip over, or the damage stability wasn't sufficient.

What would have happened to the ship if it were not beached sideways to the dropoff? Is there a detailed chart of the bottom where it beached showing the exact slope?