Last voyage for Costa Concordia cruise ship

When Costa is saying that the course was set at Civitavecchia they are saying that the same type of computer was programed with a route in normal navigation channels that did not go near the island. The captain had to override the computer course and take control.

 

He may still.

As you and I know, it is VERY common after such disasters.

-Tom

 

Nick O'malley
January 17, 2012

WHEN the Costa Concordia ground onto rocks its captain, and the officers of the watch had some of the most sophisticated electronic navigation systems ever created at their fingertips.
At the heart of the bridge would have been the Electronic Chart Display and Information System, which updates the ship's position continually using information from the global positioning system as well as other automated navigational sensors, including radar.

An echo sounder would have provided them with a real time colour display of the contours of the sea floor beneath the ship.

They would have also been monitoring two further radars, one operating on a three centimetres wavelength and a second on a 10 centimetres wavelength.

These navigation aids would have been equipped with alarms that should have sounded as they detected navigational hazards, according to Captain Ted Van Bronswijk, a director of the Company of Master Mariners of Australia and cruise liner veteran.

As a passenger ship rather than a cargo vessel the Costa Concordia should also have had two watch officers on duty as well as the captain, were he on the bridge.

''These ships are crewed like large aircraft; if someone is distracted someone else should be there,'' said Captain Van Bronswijk.

And the officers should have been directed by navigational protocols that should have ensured the ship was never in a position to wreck its hull on shallow rocks so close to the coast.

''It is very rare for a ship to be so close to shore unless it is heading into port,'' said Captain Van Bronswijk.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/pano...nt-disaster-20120116-1q3au.html#ixzz1jvpYdzf0

 

Excellent point. Over reliance on electronics in navigation and the "mesmerizing effect" is a major issue in safety at sea, for ships and boats of all sizes. About 4 years ago a charter boat captain on Lake Michigan crashed his boat at cruising speed into a jetty guarding a harbor entrance, killing one of his passengers. He told the Coast Guard afterward that he was focused on the navigational display, never looked outside the helm station at the real world (display was set on large area scale, showed he was approaching harbor but not how very close he was).

In Costa Concordia's case, a contributing factor might have been an over reliance on the concept of automation and computerized control, with a resulting failure to exert good judgement, as in "Even with all these wondrous automated systems, driving a ship the size of Lichtenstein within a few hundred meters of a rocky shore is probably not a good idea".

 

Yah sure...Ive used autopliots for many years. So its the watch officer who makes course adjustments to pass RED RED or look !!!! a crazy sailboat crossing our bow !!

 

http://news.discovery.com/earth/concordia-salvage-121701.html#mkcpgn=fbnws1

How do you turn over a 952-foot cruise ship that’s capsized on a rocky shoreline?

Marine engineers around the world are speculating on the best way to refloat the Costa Concordia, an operation that will begin as soon as authorities account for all the missing passengers.The Italian ship with 4,200 passengers and crew ran aground Friday in 45 feet of water as it was passing the island of Giglio off the coast of Tuscany. As of Tuesday, 11 people had been killed and more than a dozen were still missing.

Although the ship lies on its starboard side and is in shallow water just offshore, Italian coast guard authorities fear that worsening weather is pushing it into deeper water which could make the rescue and salvage operation more difficult. Italian environmental officials have also asked the ship’s owner, Miami-based Carnival Cruise Cruise Lines, to come up with a plan to remove 2,000 metric tons of diesel fuel that remain in the hull of the stricken liner.

“Nobody wants a wreck removal where you have to chop it up,” said Joe Farrell III, a marine salver and naval architect at Resolve Marine Group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “You want to take enough weight off it so it will float off the bottom. The thing is on its side. You’d need to roll it right side up and you would need a crazy amount of force to do that.”

Farrell recently returned from Sri Lanka where he salvaged a group of four ships, and also rescued a stranded cruise ship in the Arctic Canadian waters last year. Once the diesel fuel is removed from the ship, a process that will take at least several weeks, it will become more buoyant.

Salvers also may decide to force air into its ballast tanks in order to blow out water that has leaked through a 165 foot gash along the side. The damage would likely be repaired only after workers cut away the jagged edges around the gash and weld steel plates to the hull. The entire operation can be modeled on computer programs that predict the kinds of stresses that the ship can handle.

Once the hole is patched, Farrell said that airbags could be placed under the hull to help stabilize the ship. They may not be enough to right-size it. That would be done using a series of chains and pulleys in a winching system called “parbuckling.”Special marine chains made with 90-pound, 18-inch links are wrapped around the ship and then pulled around a pivot point or “deadman” that is anchored either into the sea bed or onshore. A winch then slowly pulls the ship back over.

“You’re talking 5,000 to 6,000 tons of force,” Farrell said. “It’s got to be one of the biggest operations ever.”

Marine salvage operators from Seattle to Greece are already eyeing the prize of repairing and refloating the massive Costa Conordia, which contains four swimming pools, five restaurants, 13 bars and a casino.

Some experts say the trend of ever-bigger cruise ships pose a danger on the high seas. It’s not just the size of the ship, but the number of people on board, according to James Herbert, a spokesman for the International Salvage Union, a London-based trade group representing salvage operators. “Evacuating those passengers and handling them safety far out to sea is a matter of considerable concern,” he said.

 

Link didn't work.

 

Moldovan

I cant believe it- news reports now say he was wining and dining a 25 year old Moldovan lady up to 30 minutes before the hit - who afterwards accompanied him to the bridge and was there with him during the "accident" and grounding...

Like so much other news these days -you couldn't make it up.

 

Captains and experts,
Thank you for sharing your informed, real-world and often witty perspectives with the rest of us who would otherwise have had to rely on the media services.

I'd like to add a link to a youtube video that claims to use available data to reconstruct the final route of the Concordia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5mbKt7rQkQ
If this video is correct that thing steers like a boat!

May I please ask people to discuss the turn-about maneuver that must have involved lowering and raising a forward anchor (I recall that someone named it about 100 posts ago)? I was wondering if the visualization of the ship sideswiping the shore makes sense. I can see that it would fall over to starboard if the bottom caught on the sea bed.
Why didn't the ship travel in a straight line on the way back to shore? If the anchor was payed out would it have held the bow back while the screws, which are electrically driven and can apparently rotate in lieu of a rudder, push to ship back to land?

Finally, and thank you for your time, couldn't a rope/chain system be employed to "moor" the boat to the shore instead of letting it slip off the ledge with all the fuel?

 

Detailed Ship Tracking

found on YouTube ....



Information http://www.qps.nl/display/qastor/2012/01/17/20120117_stranding
After the Costa Concordia made the headlines by running onto a rock off the island of Giglio in Italy, we've received many questions whether this could have been prevented. Now we can't tell what happened exactly on the bridge of the Costa Concordia the night of the grounding, but we have made a small reconstruction based on the AIS data. We used our Qastor Pilotage software to replay the final minutes of the Costa Concordia and show the sort of warnings that are available to the mariner in today's software.

There is an interesting pdf file that provides some further explanation!
The original HD video can be accessed from there as well.

... oops BHere beat me to it!

 

That would truly be a shame if he did. Hopefully he may find some redemption.

 

Rare footage from the bridge!

Ok, the discussion has changed in the time I have posted this, but it's meant to be a couple pages back.

 

Finally the media are turning their attention on Costa. From the Guardian:

"The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that investigators had established that Captain Francesco Schettino spoke on three occasions to the ship's operator, Costa Cruises, via its emergency unit before the evacuation began.

Investigators wanted to know whether the 68-minute period that elapsed during the course of these calls was because Schettino had underplayed or underestimated the gravity of the damage sustained by the liner, or because Costa Cruises, a subsidiary of Miami-based Carnival, had been reluctant to sanction a decision to evacuate that might cost it millions of euros in compensation, the paper said."

It's worth reading the entire article.

Also:

"...evidence of Costa Cruises' enthusiasm for "salutes" can be found on the firm's blog in an entry describing how, in September 2010, the Costa Concordia under Schettino's command passed close to the island of Procida in the bay of Naples.

The blog said the salute provided "great excitement not only for the islanders but also for the numerous tourists present ... [It was] doubtless a joy and a novelty for all, including the guests of the Costa Concordia, ready with their cameras on the external decks to immortalise that unique moment and celebrate and salute with flags and handkerchiefs." "

 

So what?
everyone wants your money, this does not mean them gifts!
Anyone could want anything, but the commander has the responsibility and must do what is right.
Are we nuts?
An ******* endangers the lives of 4000 people and is the fault of ...?

Throw him in a jail with a gang of gay .... and bye bye.

 

As far as I know, humble taxicabs have GPS transponders that enable the company to know where the vehicle is situated at all times, if only for the purpose of allotting jobs to the closest unit. So, it seems not too much to expect this cruise company has similar knowledge of the track its ships are on in real time. If unsafe navigation has therefore been known to be taking place in the past and not addressed, they are as hopeless as the 'charming' captain.