Last voyage for Costa Concordia cruise ship

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

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

 

smartbig, do not feed the trolls!

 

In my opinion, as well as technical information, new philosophies are also exchanged.
These are the foundation of every design.
Now I ask you:
is acceptable in 2012, shocking a rock, a ship (4500 passengers) has a hole 70 meters long?

the question is so macro to obscure all rest.

Or what I say is nonsense?

 

Fair enough, but what inputs would you factor in before making that decision? Surely you wouldn't just run for shore at the first sign of flooding. I assume you would see how many compartments were damaged, what the rate of flooding was, whether you could effect repairs, if pumps could keep ahead of the flooding, whether or not you were concerned with loss of power and steerage, whether you could counter ballast and maintain stability, etc., but I could be wrong in all those assumptions. So if you have the inclination, please enlighten me. (I really should use more of those, folks tend to think you are more serious than you really are otherwise)

Despite what my friend Gian_Milan thinks, I am not trolling for arguments here, just trying to drill down to the facts, and learn a thing or two in advance of seeing what the investigation yields. So please forgive me if I push for answers to the questions I have.

IMO, whether the beaching was the correct thing to do or not, or whether it was even by choice, is one of the more interesting questions about the Concordia incident.

 

That is an interesting question as well. Is it acceptable? I know the Titanic comparison is done to death, but there are some interesting similarities - similar length vessels, a sudden realization of imminent collision, orders for full astern and full rudder, a glancing blow at speed. Or at least that how it appears from the info I've seen so far. And what did the Titanic suffer? Was it approximately 100m gash? I don't recall exactly. I remember that it has been at least partly blamed on brittle steel in the cold water. Now for Concordia - apparently less speed, modern metallurgy, but still a seemingly fatal gash in the side, nearly as long as Titanic suffered.

But again, we have to wait for the facts before we can really draw any conclusions.

 

You nailed it. Those are exactly the factors I'd have being investigated. But I'd immediately start moving toward shelter. That might not necessarily be land. I might head for a nearby shipping lane. Improve chances of my rafts and boats getting picked up sooner. Or move to escape from a current that would carry the survivors far out to sea, should we sink.

I would send immediate distress. Can always cancel later. Might not have option to send one later. And I'd ready the boats and rafts, and get people mustered and in life vests.
I'd have them wrap themselves in blankets. Panic is a real concern. Wrapping in a blanket is calming. Maybe a memory of swaddling as an infant. Don't know the why, just it calms fears.

 

Interesting, thanks. That provides a good metric to evaluate what transpired on the Concordia, once we have a report on it.

I wonder how automated the ballast system on Concordia was? Was there load/stability monitoring software used onboard? Was it possible to quickly run scenarios to determine how to counter ballast, or to determine survivability? Did she have a means of quickly dumping topsides pools etc. to improve stability? Did she have a tank based roll damping system in addition to the fins?

 

All good questions. I always control ballast on my vessels. Automated or not, conflict with office or engineers or not. Ballast is mine.

 

And well you should!

 

Seems the most recent report to my eyes/ears is that the 2000 tonnes of fuel will be pumped out very shortly (at the same time as divers are inspecting the last of the cabins etc)... An Italian? naval vessel especially equipped for such disasters is on standby to commence on direction... (I presume the Harbour Master is supervising operations? - seeking survivors or bodies ... and overall safety considerations...)

 

I have not seen news after the search was suspended briefly due to ship movement. There has not been much concern reported over the fuel removal process. One good thing.

http://www.wral.com/news/greenguide/story/10625308/

I look forward to hearing what the hard drive reveals.

 

NavSim published their AIS reconstruction/simluation of the Costa Concordia accident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpjy5fvTqpI


and...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxrEEpIs2iM


Quite similar to the one published by the gCaptain a few days ago.

However, I'm still not sure if they'r correct... Cannot wait for the VDR data to be published (if ever)

 

Is that an EDICS chart ? Note that there are no spot sounding on the coast of Giglio...only the harbour. My Edics charts have no detail of the island...navigation at night inside the 100 meter curve would be foolish

The accident was simply a blunder.

More important to ship safety was the evacuation procedure.

I would like to hear more on the difficulties faced be the thousands of passengers in motion inside the ship and how this will affect future design and crew training

 

Floodable lengths

I have had no time to read through all posts, sorry. Has anybody here, or in another thread on Costa Concordia's accident subject, asked about the floodable length of this vessel?

 

I'm waiting to learn her tankage status. Slack tanks kill ships. Whether they be fuel tanks, water tanks, cargo tanks, ballast tanks, ect. My personal rule is full or empty. Absolute minimum partial full tanks. It;s why I OWN the ballast on my vessels. And all other liquids.