CostaSmurfette

Gee................if this is correct.(no disrepect entended CS)......heres alot of our answers.......

 

Concordia was not 100% functional' date=' there was a repair crew that were to board her in Savona on January 14 and remain with her for 7-10 days to repair the depth sounder, radar and autopilot...items that had either failed completely or had suffered intermittant failures in the days and weeks leading up to what happened. Added to this Concordia was experiencing higher than average power outtages...this was confirmed to me by many of those aboard her the fateful night and who had been aboard her in the 10 days prior.[/color']

 

I cannot speak for other countries, but in the states the USCG would not have permitted the vessel to sail with this amount of bridge gear off line.

 

This also may answer why the rock was not seen by radar.

 

AKK

And as I wondered several pages ago, will we see port authorities dragged into this too...

Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Civitavecchia...they all have the power to impound a ship if the minimum equipment list is not complete...but they did not...

Is it possible that they had been given assurances that the ship would be repaired on the 14th, so allowed her to sail?

Is it possible that they were placed under pressure from Carnival Corp....afterall, the buck stops with Carnival...none of the Carnival group companies make big decisions like pulling a ship out of service for repairs, THAT is Miami's decision to make...

It is also well known in industry circles that Carnival Corp do the bare minimum required to pass SOLAS and their companies have no say in it whatsoever since it is the corporation that orders the ships and pays for the ships, not the individual companies.

Ever get the feeling that the corporation needed a moving target to deflect all this away from their front door step?

Ever get the feeling that maybe a few palms have been greased...a ship not really fit to sail is allowed to do so on a promise that it will be fixed?

You see this is not the first time that it has happened...back in 2008 I was notified of serious problems with VoD's Discovery when she was sailing from the UK...so I called a contact in the UKMCA and so started a 7 month cat and mouse chase around the Baltic, Scandinavia, Northern Europe and Mediterranean...I also had a cruise journalist get involved and she interviewed the then MD who stated WEEKLY that the ship would be fixed "next week" and that ship was inspected in EVERY port, found to be faulty in EVERY port and the authorities promised that she will be "fixed next week" and the next week would come and still no repairs. She did get sorted eventually but only after countless inspections, countless promises, visits by the company insurer and flag representatives and finally the threat by her captain to hand her over in Gibraltar to the British authorities is she was not fixed.....low and behold, she was fixed and the MD lost his job.

The more that comes out of the Concordia investigation, the more history seems to be repeating itself...but on a larger scale.

Flame me if you like, but I don't believe the captain was as cowardly as everyone makes him out to be.

 

Without the radio transmission from the Coast Guard ordering him back on board many I think would have been praising the captain. Instead one piece of damning evidence from the very beginning before any other facts were known has nailed him prematurely in MHI.

 

Accepted the captain has final responsibility but there is far more to this and the programme the other night asked more questions than gave answers.

Francesco Schettino was scared...and to my knowledge, being scared is a normal human response to a dangerous situation...and certainly not a hanging offence (yet).

There is absolutely no doubt that "people" on the bridge made grave errors, these errors were exacerbated by equipment problems on board Concordia that were known about and which were due for repair as of the 14th (the day after the incident).

Personally I feel the reasons why so many have gone for Francesco Schettino is that he had a bloody big target painted on his back...NOT due to him being the Captain and the buck stops with him as such but simply to divert attention away from the wider implications...such as crew training, suitability of the ship, equipment on the ship, language issues on the bridge and the fact that he was unable to control that most primitive and natural of the human senses, that of absolute fear.

Targetted for execution in January, sacked in July...it will irk people no end but with what is coming out of the black box and the known (but carefully airbrushed faults with the ship) it is looking alot like Francesco Shettino was used to divert attention and thus he could well have grounds for wrongful dismissal.

If that ship ever makes it off the island, she too will no doubt throw up some interesting snippets too.

Carnival and the various lines that sail under the Corp do have an abligation to protect their passengers. If they didn't, why have Muster Drills. :rolleyes:

In this situation, where many passengers were left behind by the Captain, they did what they had to do. What did Carnival expect them to do, just stand there whilst the ship went down! Those people were fighting for their lives whilst the Captain "fell, tripped," whatever to save his backside.

Just like their letter to survivors telling them not to come to Giglio, this is another poorly written letter and a PR nightmare. Doesn't instill confidence in how they run their business.

Muster drilling is maritime law and has nothing to do with the cruise lines per se...they have to do them along with all the other safety recommendations and procedures otherwise they are not certified to operate...SOLAS.

However, there are countries that are not member states of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), these ar mainly in Asia and other areas such as some of South America and Africa, where the SOLAS rules do not apply...hence why many older ships go out to these regions and carry on operating despite not being "legal" in IMO/SOLAS governed countries.

Going back to Carnival Corp...from what I saw aboard Concordia's sister, Pacifica, a few weeks ago it was fairly obvious that the bare minimum is done in regard to SOLAS...afterall the IMO only legislate against operators who flout or refuse to abide by the rules...NOT those who do the bare minimum requirement to pass.

For example...

Costa Pacifica's muster stations are on outer decks 3 and 4..primary being 4.

To access the muster stations you have to go through one of several sets of double doors operated by a push bar...all well and good.

These doors, on Pacifica at least, are a very dark chocolate brown in decor with a black pattern. On the top outer corner (that is, where the doors meet), there is a 4" square dark green muster station sign. The sign is not illuminated, nor is it fluorescent.....unless you look closely, you completely miss it when glancing at the doors.

Deck 4 on a Concordia class ship is a rabbit warren...many pax were getting hopelessly lost tween the entrances of the midships and aft dining rooms...the signage was extremely poor to the extent that additional signage had been made up to go into the landing area of the aft and miships stairtowers, these extra signs were cardboard printout, not permanently affixed signage.

Lighting is also quite dim...along with the dark decor this exacerbates the feel of being closed in and adds to the confusion in regard to where everything is on board.

It therefore became obvious that although these ships are built and maintained to IMO/SOLAS standard....the owners are doing the bare minimum to maintain that standard simply cos they can.

Costa Crociere have no say in their fleet newbuilds and this was evident when I sailed aboard Classica, Victoria and Allegra...three ships built long before Carnival too the company over. Signage is much larger, much easier to see, it is illuminated and the interior spaces are considerably brighter on those older ships that the newer Carnival Corp owned/ordered vessels.

There is a vast difference tween the older pre-Carnival ships and those post-Carnival in their interpretation and use of the SOLAS regulations and procedures....which is possibly why Carnival want to either be rid of or remodel the older stock (yes, I am deeply cynical when it comes to the shenanigans of large corporations).

The fact that Carnival maybe doing the bare minimum does not mean that other corporations are not doing the same thing to a degree...afterall if one can get away with it, the others might be too.

The big thing now is that come April/May this year, the IMO is going to be ratifying much tougher SOLAS standards in the wake of Concordia...this can only mean that standards are improved both in safety but also in design of the ships...and the smaller items such as signage will inevitably fall under those changes.

As usual though, it took bodybags to force these changes to be made.

Thinking back onto Tonka's statement about never going on board a Carnival Corp ship...

Think on this for a moment.

Concordia was not 100% functional, there was a repair crew that were to board her in Savona on January 14 and remain with her for 7-10 days to repair the depth sounder, radar and autopilot...items that had either failed completely or had suffered intermittant failures in the days and weeks leading up to what happened. Added to this Concordia was experiencing higher than average power outtages...this was confirmed to me by many of those aboard her the fateful night and who had been aboard her in the 10 days prior.

The itinerary is a very high revenue one, 5 ports of call, 5 debark/embark points over 7 nights, so you have a high turnover of pax but also of crew...the crew are literally "on the clock" 20 hours a day, every day. It is a high earner, hence why they have the biggest ships doing it, often in tandem...Costa Serena was doing a modified version at the same time.

The repairs required would normally take a ship out of service for a few days, Carnival Corp permit or not this to happen...Costa Crociere apply to Carnival Corp since it is Carnival Corp who ultimately organise drydocking/repair times...Costa ask, they are not allowed to do it themselves.

Taking one of the fleet's largest ships out for a few days and having NO replacement...bearing in mind that the other big ships were in South America & Middle East at the time...was going to be a revenue hit. She was to be repaired on the hoof.

Directly after the accident, Serena took up some of the slack but that was not going to be possible for long since it is a high capacity route.

Once all ships were back into the Med from South America and Middle East, Costa Magica was due to reposition to her usual Baltic Capitals itinerary. Costa neoRomantica was due to take up the bus stop route with Concordia and Serena since the extra capacity would be needed during the summer.

However, due to the loss of Concordia, Magica was swapped with neoRomantica and it was Magica that took up Concordia's place...bigger ship, more capacity...so again you had large capacity ships running those itineraries...the Baltic capitals, although popular, could make do with the much smaller neoRomantica.

Carnival Corp sent their second in charge to Genova to over see everything after the accident. He will have instructed which ship to go where and when in order to continue the flow of revenue onto that route.

Carnival Corp ultimately own the ships, they pull the purse stings and they have final say as to which ship is deployed to which itinerary. Speak to any of the crew and they all agree that the ships are too big for the route, especially with the multiple embark/debark points...it is incredibly tiring for the crew...I saw that for myself on Pacifica...even without the buoy kiss, they worked extremely long hours staying on top of an almost daily changeover of pax...there is only one or two sea days and those are used to catch up with jobs around the ship and to try and get some rest.

Bottom line...revenue played a part in Concordia's demise...she was not fully functioning, her captain had been pressured into doing a sail by knowing the ship was going to be met by a repair crew the next day...makes for an accident waiting to happen.

Concordia is not the first accident at sea that raised questions over the charts used.

The loss of Sea Diamond was eventually put down to charting error....

Errors in an out-of-date chart were to blame for the sinking of the cruise ship Sea Diamond off the Greek island of Santorini on 5 April 2007, a survey has found. Two French passengers died when the Louis Hellenic Cruises-operated ship hit a reef.

 

After conducting a seabed survey of the accident area, the Hydrographic Service of the Hellenic Navy, the official provider of chart data for Greek waters, discovered that the fatal reef was 131m from the shore and not 57m as shown on the chart used by the Sea Diamond’s crew to approach the island. At the point of impact, the depth was only 5m, not 22m as shown on the chart.

 

This confirmed the results of a survey undertaken in 2007 by Akti Engineering. Louis Hellenic Cruises, which maintained that the area’s charts were faulty, commissioned Akti to survey the approach to Santorini on behalf of the defence team of the ship’s master, who awaits trial on criminal charges.

 

The admission from the Hellenic Hydrographic Office that its charts were incorrect contrasts with HHO’s earlier refusal to accept Akti’s survey results.

http://www.safetyatsea.net/login.aspx?reason=denied_empty&script_name=/secure/display.aspx&path_info=/secure/display.aspx&articlename=sane20081204013ne

Begs the question as to how many ships....not just cruise ships...have out of date, inaccurate or the wrong type of charts on their bridge...Concordia cannot be the only ship afloat with this problem.

And another point regarding Sea Diamond, she took 3 hours to evacuate despite being daylight (against Concordia in the dark) and she, like Concordia, was close to shore.

A fascinating insight from a survivor from Sea Diamond...especially from paragraph 12 onwards :

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/the-sinking-of-the-sea-diamond.html

To assist in some respects as to what charting is on the bridge, these are video snippets taken from Cruise Ship Diaries filmed aboard Concordia's sister, Serena....alot of what is said/shown is by second officer Cutugno...each snippet lasts around 3 minutes...

http://natgeotv.com/uk/cruise-ship-diaries/videos/dont-rock-the-boat

http://natgeotv.com/uk/cruise-ship-diaries/videos/the-bridge

Back in August, I posted these as potential causal factors....

Human error by one and/or more personnel on the bridge.

 

An over-reliance on technology/instrumentation.

 

Inability or unwillingness to question orders or direction between officers & crew on the bridge.

 

Inaccuracy of paper charting (as proven in 2007 with Sea Diamond).

 

Unreliability of instrumentation by design flaw, technical breakdown and/or poor training in its usage.

 

Complacency throughout the cruise industry regarding the "it'll never happen to us" syndrome.

 

Potentially fatal design flaws in the construction, design and general day to day running of the vessel.

Maybe I should add....

Inability to comprehend the English language.

Poor/non-existant bridge resource management.

Failures to maintain correct forward training practice in relation to emergency situations.

Failures in watch keeping (attached to the BRM issues)

And now that I have spent 7 days on Concordia's sister, I also believe that the current SOLAS standards regarding poor signage and internal layout/deck plan design IS flawed, with the priority being made towards revenue and not ease of access or navigation for pax...ESPECIALLY when a ship of the size and capacity of the Concordia class is used on "bus stop" itineraries where pax rarely get used to the layout due to the time constraints placed on them by the itinerary itself.

Finally, there MUST be a way of testing the fear factor of all crew. They, like us, are human beings and as such none of us can EVER know how we would react in an emergency until we are IN an emergency.

Much has been said about Schettino bailing out early....currently you cannot train against fear reactions...moreso in an industry like cruising where (thankfully) major accidents are rare events.

No-one...not even Uniall...can say, hand on heart, that they would NOT be absolutely terrified in the situation that befell Concordia...and no-one...not even Uniall...can say, hand on heart, that they would NOT react in exact same way as Schettino did. We ALL want to think and hope that we would remain calm and in control of our fear but there are no guarantees of that, nor is there a way of knowing that you will fall to bits until that situation presents itself.

As for the pax who I spoke to and the alleged panic...again, we are talking human beings and their flight/fight reflex and we all know that in a crowd of people, it only takes a few to get into panic mode for it to spread like wildfire...one person screams, those around them scream and so it continues until everyone is screaming.....it's like catching norovirus....it spreads FAST.

6.27pm ... Captain on the Bridge ... Narration .. He relecutantly decides to change the planned route (no reason given)

 

Ships Audio Recording ..

 

Captain Ok just check what speed we need to get out of here and we`ll go by Giglio, let` go and salute Giglio.

 

Officer ... Yes 30 miles from here.

 

Captain ... We need to go by this Bloody Giglio (!)

 

Narration ... Captain agreed to the salute for a colleague onboard. Italian Military police recovered the ship charts .. small charts used .. rocks not marked. Larger charts show rocks .. not required to have Large charts onboard as Giglio is not on the Itinery.

OK...

A reluctance to go ahead with the sail by.....

I know from speaking to pax that were aboard that night and in previous days that the ship was not right, so that in itself is reason to be reluctant.

So...the question is, who pressured Schettino into making that sail by...afterall, if you don't want to do something, you're not likely to do it voluntarily anyway unless you feel pressured or obliged to do it are you?

His reluctance and his insecurity about going were plain to see by pax and in photographs taken the evening prior....is this where Ferrarini comes into play, perhaps?

The unknown phone call tween Schettino and whoever was on the other end...an argument against going to Giglio but having to go on orders?

Over the year since the accident happened a few things have peaked the curiosity...and the transcript above posted by sidari only heightens that curiosity.

Firstly...Schettino was thrown under the bus within 24 hours and has been villified by media who have been given him on a silver platter...personally I have always felt that his position has been one of sacrificial lamb to a small degree but to the greater degree nothing more than a diversion away from the procedural and training problems industry wide that the accident has exposed.

Here we have a captain who was involved in a fatal accident...notwithstanding the fact that as captain, the buck stops with him...he has had a target placed onto his back by his employers...fair enough...BUT....if he was such a terrible employee, why then did the company/corporation NOT fire him IMMEDIATELY...why wait a further 6 months before doing so, thus he remained on the payroll whilst at the same time being crucified by all and sundry?

Is it any wonder that he is attempting to claim wrongful dismissal...afterall, as scapegoats go, he is not immune from blame but he is also not the only protaganist in this tragedy.

You cannot throw an employee under the bus and still have them on the payroll for 6 months and then sack them....you either throw them under the bus and sack them immediately or you suspend the employee but remain at his shoulder until such time as investigations prove without a shadow of doubt that he was the only one to make an error.

Yes he made errors...but so did others that night...and that transcript blows so much of the theorising and accusations right out of the water.

Right from the get go I knew, from my experience with studying aircrashes for over 30 years, that there was alot more to this accident that met the eye...alot more implications to consider, alot more people involved and alot more procedures/training flaws involved...along with known faults with the ship and her technology (which does come from the Splendor fire, which could be seen as a precursor to problems involving equipment installations and design issues specifically attributable to the Concordia class).

I totally understand Tonka's comments about not wanting to go aboard a Carnival Corp ship...afterall, we are not just talking Splendor and Concordia here...we have known problems with Grand, Crown & Emerald Princesses and their infamous "uncommanded turns" that the corporation blamed the bridge crew when industry insiders preferred to cast doubt over the autopilot equipment/computers...then you have the recent incident with Ventura with her deck cracking from side to side duing a Bay of Biscay crossing a couple weeks before Christmas last year...

It seems odd that ships being belted out on the conveyor belt at Fincantieri are seeminly having more problems than those built at other yards...could it be "just one of those things"...or is it that the corporation want ships belted out quickly, cheaply and maybe the amounts paid mean that certain equipment and build standards are shaved?

Fincantieri CAN build amazing ships....you only have to look at the original Disney pair to see that...yet Disney have shifted to a German yard for their larger variants.

The French, German and Finnish yards take alot longer to build ships than Fincantieri do...despite using the same "lego brick" prefabricated system...and it is the French, German and Finnish yards that are taking the latest newbuild orders, along with Japanese yards.

Which begs the question...is there a problem with Fincantieri...lets not forget that in the last 18 months or so they have had workforce issues, financial issues, delivered ships late, delivered refurbished ships in an unfit condition (Saga Sapphire, Thomson Dream to name a couple that have left Palermo's Fincantieri yard only to suffer breakdown after breakdown within weeks of delivery).

The latest programmes about Concordia have shifted the spotlight off Schettino and have included the wider picture (not before time)....and Schettino could use these findings to pursue and potentially win a wrongful dismissal case...NOT cos he had no part in what happened that night but cos he was effectively used to divert the coverage away from the wider implications...the greatest and most expensive being the ship herself and any extremely costly rectifications that may be required to be made to her sisters Splendor, Serena & Pacifica and her cousins Favalosa & Fascinosa...not to mention the Conquest class too...it is also strange that the original footprint ship, Destiny, will be at Fincantieri this year for a complete rebuild - adding more cabins, adding more decks etc.

But going back to the transcript, those 13 seconds of indecision and confusion from the helmsman could damage the case against Schettino...no officer should need to repeat orders time after time, but from that transcript he DID have to, so we are not looking at 13 seconds delay, but perhaps a total of several minutes throughout the entire procedure....and it keeps coming back to the helmsman and his limited English which was exacerbated by the variety of Italian accents from the captain and other officers on the bridge that night.

The saga seems to continue. I do not have details' date=' but is seems the famous Carnival Spendour, sister to the Concordia, has had another major engine/ mechanical breakdown, but is under way and a day or 2 late getting into Long Beach.:confused:

 

AKK[/quote']

 

Splendor got herself badly snagged in fishing nets a while ago and it messed up the bearings and its that which requires replacement.

 

That can happen to any ship and if memory serves, Seven Seas Navigator or Voyager got it bad a few years ago and ended up cancelling a couple of cruises due to damage received after running into fishing nets.

 

So as much as it is correct to say that Concordia's sister Splendor is in the doghouse again, just as her other sister Pacifica was when I was aboard last month, both incidents are common...as you indeed said so yourself Tonka ;)

Seatrade has some interesting reading regarding the aftermath...

Now, one would naturally assume that those who lost loved ones would go for all out lawsuits...totally understandable in the circumstances, but in Concordia's case it seem's that NONE of the surviving family members of the 32 deceased have pursued legal action against anyone...not Costa Crociere and not Carnival Corp.

Also, 70% of the pax aboard that night have accepted the original compensation package as offered, 20% are still contemplating and only 10% are going for lawsuits....which again is surprising when you read the tabloids that appear to indicate a poor uptake of the compensation package :

http://www.seatrade-insider.com/News/News-Headlines/Concordia-one-year-on-salvage-compensation-criminal-proceedings.html

What I find quite incredible is that the relatives of those lost have declined legal action despite the potential of any human error being proven.....many times on this and other board there have been "how much is a life worth" type of comment, well whatever the package was that Costa Crociere/Carnival Corp offered the families, must have been sufficient.

Now whether it was sufficient in the wider public view or not is immaterial, suffice it to say, the families are satisfied enough not to take it further and fair play to them for not taking it further and wanting to get on with their lives as best they can.

It remains to be seen if the 10% get their lawsuits off the ground since there is still the jurisdiction problem and that will inevitably lengthen the process of settlement, which in turn is likely to force a few to drop out and accept the original offer...again to get lives back on track as best they can and put the entire incident behind them.

Schettino who was on public duties and who was called to the bridge when things went pearshaped.

 

Concordia according to the TV programme was on Auto Pilot when Schettino attended the bridge, it was then turned off and the ship taken manually by the 1st officer who was in charge of the ship until Schettino announced that he was taking over.

 

Paulrobs ... I find it strange that you say you will not cruise again if Schettino is not jailed! does that mean you would never Fly again in an aircraft if a Pilot was not convicted of causing a crash? your decision but a very very odd one considering many people who were on Concordia that night have cruised since then.

Who programmed the auto-pilot....?

Routinely on several cruise lines it is the First Officer, which would have been Ambrosio in Concordia's case.

All it takes is a distraction or a fat finger hitting the wrong digit for the wrong track to be entered...Concordia was not that far off the usual course...so potentially a miskeyed entry on the auto-pilot could have sent her where she was not meant to go...and then you have the realisation, the return to the bridge by Schettino, the barked orders by Schettino and Ambrosio and the confused Indonesian at the helm....chain reaction that probably started before Concordia even left Civitavecchia during charting and auto-pilot setup.

Then of course we can take it a step further and ask about the reliability of the auto-pilot.

You only need to look at Crown Princess, Emerald Princess and Grand Princess and their "uncommanded turns" whilst on auto-pilot to see that even those systems are not infallable. Concordia was behaving badly that week...power fluctuations that affected the black box, the depth sounder and radar may have interferred with the auto-pilot too....no way of knowing for sure.

Despite throwing him under the bus in January, he was not fired til July...why? If he was so bad, surely he should have been fired immediately?

The training of Captains is the same regardless of cruise line, or indeed shipping line. Is there something wrong with the training...how do companies weed out those who do not cut the mustard...how can a company know ahead of time that a captain will wobble and allow his or her fear get in the way of better judgement?

How is it that another senior officer from that night made captain a few months after the event...yet had come into some criticism...if he passed the exams and got the ticket....then is it time to strengthen the exams and make it harder to gain that master's ticket?

Captaincy training is not governed by the cruise lines, its laid down and regulated by the authorities...so if the "expertise" and "experience" is there and that person has worked up the ranks regardless of fast tracking or standard....how will the companies know if they have a rogue, a scaredy cat or a perfectionist?

Tonight in the UK on sky tv channel 527 there was a programme about the Concordia 12 months on made by National Geographic, the information used was from the Data recorder together with a computer graphic of the ship.

 

The data recorder and the Graphic shows Schettino taking over control of the ship and when they realised they were close to Le Scole rock ordered a turn to Starboard, then an order Rudder to Midship followed by an order of Port 20 degrees ... this would have taken Concordia clear of Le Scole rock but for some reason it took the Helmsman some 13 seconds to act on the order, by the time the order Hard to Port was given it was too late.

 

It seems that in those 13 seconds the fate of Concordia was sealed, as for why it took time to give the Abandon ship order ... the Experts on the programme say that it would have been almost impossible to lower lifeboats full of people while the ship was moving away from Giglio and listing to Port while heading to deeper waster and the number of deaths would have benn much greater.

 

When Concordia turned around the wind acting on the Port side pushed the ship into the Vertical/Upright position which then caused the water within the Hull to move to the Starboard side and cause the ship to capsize onto that side, the programme also said that with three adjoining watertight compartments breeched that the Concordia could not stay afloat.

A few pages ago I did mention that the investigative team had discovered that the Indonesian helmsman could not speak or understand Italian and that he only had very limited English too...and when barked orders by two senior officers - Schettino and Ambrosio - in a confused and probably paicked situation, it is therefore hardly a surprise that the helmsman fluffed the commands and delayed reactions.

The blackbox transcripts as featured in the programme confirm that there was a breakdown in bridge resource management and there was a breakdown in communication that was exacerbated by language difficulties.

There have been questions as to whether or not the helmsman has been considered for charges in relation to his actions and to the level of his training...

You have three principle players in what went on that night...

Schettino who was on public duties and who was called to the bridge when things went pearshaped.

Ambrosio who was on duty and thus effectively in charge of the vessel, albeit as bridge officer (notwithstanding he was one pip below Schettino who is in overall command but Schettino (as all Captains) should be able to leave his or her first officer in charge without fear of them getting into a dangerous position. Ambrosio obviously called Schettino to the bridge when the initial mistake was discovered.

And then you have the helmsman...an Indonesian seafarer with no Italian and little English who is following orders initially from Ambrosio and then from both Ambrosio and Schettino and getting those orders fuddled up causing a 13 second delay in action/reaction time.

13 seconds is a tiny amount of time but with a 290m long ship clunking at 10+ knots...that 13 seconds means a hell of alot.

Add into the mix that the ship wasn't right and you have one unholy mess...or as many have said, an accident waiting to happen...not a case of if, but when.

There will be changes after this...and I do not mean the public face of cruising (or indeed shipping in general)...the language and training problems that this accident has thrown up right across the board will inevitably lead to bridge resource management improvements, training for foreign crew will be changed to ensure that English is not just fluently spoken but fully understood. As in the aviation field, the maritime industry language is English...the aviation field learned hard lessons after accidents due to crew's who had poor understanding or grasp of the English language...especially in times such as an emergency when things get tense and the need to understand what is being said is absolutely paramount.

Discovery Channel are doing a two part documentary starting Sunday. It might be interesting to compare the content and interpretation on both the Discovery and NatGeo programmes...see if both come to the same conclusions.

With the ship staying put until at least September, if she doesn't collapse in on herself by then or break her back, this saga will run and run. Whether we, as the cruising public, will ever get the full facts of that night and the implications in regard to the design of the ship, the maintenance issues, the training issues, the language issues and the absolute causes that inevitably led to what happened is debateable.

The fact that cruise lines worldwide have shifted into high gear within 48 hours of the accident and changed their rules and procedures and are continuing to do so without ratification or agreement from the International Maritime Organisation speaks volumes.

The IMO will be dealing with proposed changes to SOLAS in March/April but they might not come into law for another 2 years...that is 2 years too long and it begs the question as to whether all cruise lines have been doing the bare minimum to scrape past the existing SOLAS standards...from what I have seen, it is almost certainly the case (and I do not mean just aboard Costa ships but on other ships belonging to other cruise lines that I have sailed on in the last 35+ years).

The cruise lines have gotten away with it cos the IMO lets them get away with it and with that an air of complacency had grown..."it will never happen"

Concordia is a game changer...or at least she SHOULD be...the cruise lines all need to up their corporate game, hang back of the frilly WOW factor and concentrate more on the "it WILL happen"....before anyone else dies.

If lessons are not learnt from Concordia, from maritime architects to Captains and everyone in between, then we WILL have another accident and the next one potentially will be alot worse.

In relation to the survivors who I had pleasure in meeting and chatting to, they were all German, French, Italian and Spanish. The cruise was not meant as a memorial type cruise, those survivors were on board purely by chance, there was nothing organised about it.

Several met up for the first time since the accident and yes, there were lots of tears tween them all. The pax numbered around 650 along with over 100 of the crew aboard Pacifica who were aboard Concordia that night...plus some of the entertainers too.

It was a highly emotive cruise, I got to meet up with a young family from Caen in France who I originally met aboard Costa Allegra in 2010, they were honeymooners back then. They were also aboard Concordia on January 13 last year, the wife was pregnant at the time. The husband had seen me aboard Pacifica and came to find me whilst I was in one of the bars, he introduced me to his 8 month old daughter who was born 3 months after the accident very healthy and a truly adoreable little girl. Meeting him, his wife and their lovely daughter was a highlight for me as is so often the case that you can make friends on a cruise and then lose touch with them, so it was great to be able to catch up with them again. The little girl was named after her late grandma, Maria, and the ship that so easily could have taken her life, Concordia.

One abiding thing to come from meeting up with the family again and through chatting to the other survivors was that all have taken steps to move on with their lives and what may surprise many of you is that they hold no mallice towards the Captain and crew aboard Concordia. As they told me, to hold grudges means not getting on with life and life is too short to hold mallice against anyone or anything. As my French family commented....

"Pour tromper est humain, pardonner est divin... telle est la vie, nous sommes ici, nous avons survécu et nous continuons à vivre et nous continuerons de croisière avec Costa, erreur d'un homme n'est pas une raison suffisante pour arrêter ce que nous aimons le plus."

Which in English is "To err is human, to forgive is divine...such is life, we are here, we survived and we continue to live and we will continue to cruise with Costa, one man's error is not reason enough to stop what we enjoy the most."

Thoughts regarding design issues...or should that be decor issues too...

Pacifica...as close to a twin to Concordia as you'll ever get.

The glass elevators DO NOT have escape hatches in their roof, just panels of toughened glass...so exactly how anyone is meant to get out in an emergency such as a capsize is frankly anyone's guess...especially since the elevators do stop tween decks in power outtages and the upper decks have solid steel doors on the access points, only the lower public decks have glass doors. The elevators themselves have glass doors.

Deck 5 is the only deck that you can go stem to stern internally through public rooms. The layout on these ships is insane.

The two restaurants are over deck 3 and 4 midships and aft, so to get to the theater from either reataurant is a case of from the aft restaurant go up one or two decks along deck 5 and then a choice of entry on deck 5 or down to deck 3 or 4 and into the theater.

The midships restaurant does have access via decks 3 & 4 into the theater across the atrium, but this access is not available to those in the aft restaurant.

The atrium is very poor in its design and access. The public areas on either side of the atrium on deck 5 have wide sweeping floorspace, however, that floorspace goes down to tween 4ft and 6ft in width..so effectively the 2000 coming out of the theater to go to dinner usually meet the 2000 coming from the restaurants in the narrowest point of the ship...deck 5 atrium.

This also due to all of the main bars and dancefloors being on deck 5, so those in the theater on decks 3 and 4 all going up the atrium stairs or using the glass elevators to deck 5 atrium where the pinchpoint is.

The muster stations are outside on deck 4.....I say outside...well they are...sort of outside. The large ship length corridor, one each side, is accessed via double doors with push bars on them. These double doors are, again, poorly designed and the decor is completely wrong.

The internal side of the doors is various shades of dark brown with a motif of a violin in black.....the muster station signage is 4" square on the top right corner of each door and it literally does need hunting to find it, it is not illuminated in any way. There are also double doors with push bars in the chapel and restaurants.

For those wishing to board lifeboats on deck 3, its difficult....to say the very least.

There are two sets of double doors out onto the outside boat decks where the boats are dropped down on their davits and can be loaded there as well as above at the muster stations on deck 4.

The double doors are approximately 15ft apart from each other, two sets - one on port side, one on starboard side, leading off from the lower atrium floor.

There are NO access points to the boat deck anywhere else from inside the ship.

So you have a combination of dark decor mixed with extremely poor use of space in the public areas and all areas are lacking in appropriate signage.

However....NONE of these issues are below SOLAS standard, infact they are BETTER than standard.....which says alot about the standard, really.

The class of ships...which would also include the older variants Destiny, Conquest along with the later variant Dream all have exactly the same floorplan layout, all have exactly the same poor flow internally...just on a rising scale of size.

There are definite issues with the design of these ships and those problems have been highlighted by the loss of Concordia...and frankly makes it all the more incredible that so many got off the ship that night.

The architects and designers of these ships almost certainly placed revenue first above everything else.....why I say this is simple, the pinch point on the atrium is where the shops are and the photo area etc are placed. The interior design of the ships is awful, not pax or crew friendly at all.

A ship of Pacifica's size at 114,500 tonnes has massive potential to "WOW" but these ships have completely missed the opportunity and instead have potentially dangerous design issues internally.

Setting aside the why's and the wherefore's of Concordia's foundering, the fact so many got off her that night is truly a miracle...NOT due to the circumstance of her foundering but by the internal design flaws and poor use of access, decor and basic common sense in the footprint of each deck.

Pacifica is dark inside, her atrium is poorly lit and looks half the size of atriums aboard smaller ships like Costa Victoria that is bathed in natural light and which has superb flow across 3 decks....a ship of Pacifica's size, with 4000 people on board needs more than one deck internally for stem to stern access...it is a gallon into a pint pot and it lets her and her sisters down badly.

 

CS, before you jump on my "major damage" words... Every report, even Costa, has stated that. The damage was above the waterline, there were no injuries, and at no time was the ship in danger of sinking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

It may not be under the waterline and thankfully there were no injuries...however, the damage is going to cost 2-3 cruises either next month or in February due to internal damage done to several crew areas and the bow thrusters.

 

So although no revenue areas were damaged, there is substantial damage to the ship. Suffice it to say that had revenue generating areas such as pax cabins, public rooms etc been affected, then the media would most certainly have jumped all over it.

 

But as I said, they were busy attacking P&O over their "plague ships" returning to Southampton with severe noro illness aboard.

 

When the huge cruise ferry Napoleon Bonaparte ripped her stern out in Marseille a couple weeks ago due to severe weather, it was only lightly covered in the media...again due to damage primarily affecting the crew areas and car deck and that again, thankfully, there were no injuries to pax or crew.

CS ... Did you manage to take any photos of the Buoy at all ? it does seem odd that the Media (or maybe not) are painting a different picture of what happened!

Strangely enough I did not....I assumed that since it was a Costa ship the media would be all over us like a rash...afterall, it was the 3rd incident in 12 months, wasn't it?

However, I discovered a couple days later that the media had missed us, or at least the big tabloids had....they were pouncing all over P&O over the "plague ships" - their words, not mine - Oriana and Azura who had large numbers of noro sufferers on board....the same media also missed the rather nasty crack across the entire width aboard Ventura a few weeks ago too from her crossing of the BoB...

So P&O snatched our limelight....but other pax had taken photo's of the buoy and it was mentioned several times via the cabin TV, the large screen in the pool area and on flyers that were posted in the cabins.....and when we were all given the nice OBC too :)

I presume the reason why the local media caught the pier bug was due to the Napoleon Bonaparte a couple weeks prior...she DID ram the quay after high winds caught her, she didn't escape with such light damage as we did though, her hull get severely ripped under the waterline causing her to settle by the stern onto the seabed in port.

But Pacifica tangled with a loose buoy in the turning area just outside the port entrance whilst under pilotage....ships of her size have to go into the port backwards, so a well practiced pirouette is required....usually goes as planned but with the recent weather one of the marker buoys may well have had its anchor chains weakened, they subsequently let go and the buoy was slammed into our side.

Most of the damage was internal...although the external damage was severe...the internal damage and that done to the bow thrusters is what you cannot see in the media shots. Internally she was ripped considerably more than the outside, hence the requirement for drydocking as soon as it becomes viable...probably immediately after the New Year cruise or shortly thereafter.

But as I have said all along, the collision happened around breakfast time, most pax were in their cabins (I was) and no-one knew that anything had happened until we saw and heard remonstrating on the quayside in French and Italian...very vocal, very animated.

We could have set sail by around 2am but due to RINA wishing to inspect the ship first, we had to wait for them to fly in from Genova, they arrived at quayside at around 7am and we were given the green light to sail to Barcelona at just before 10am. We should have been in Barcelona 2 hours by the time we left Marseille.

I honestly cannot praise the crew enough, they were completely on the ball the entire time, they kept everyone updated hourly as to progress...

Those pax who were due to disembark in Barcelona and who needed to go urgently due to work etc were given the option to be bussed from Marseille at 4am to Barcelona free of charge and with a gesture of goodwill financially for the inconvenience, they sent 3 full coach loads from Marseille to Barcelona airport.

We totally lost the timings at each port, we were compensated when in truth there was no real need to do so...it was the weather that caused the problem and that could not have been prevented.

We still reaced all 5 ports, we still had two formal nights (albeit on consecutive nights), they laid on free transport where required, gave us all excellent OBC....they could not have taken care of things better really.

I watched the next cruise via the webcams and they had perfect weather, reached all ports on time and had none of the problems that we had.

They might even have had time to put up the Christmas decorations too....it was meant to happen on my cruise but the crew just did not have the time to do it thanks to that damned buoy.

hmmm to think that when she first tipped onto Giglio, the various official and unofficial pundits all said that she wuld be gone by now.....she'll still be there this time next year, hogging the limelight and causing debate....

Happy Christmas Giglio...and hope that Concordia actually DOES get shifted in the new year somewhen....probably in pieces at the rate things are going...

Oh and happy Christmas and a healthy 2013 to those on here too....especially those who were not on Pacifica last week who seem to think she hit a pile etc...it was a BUOY...a bloody great big buoy....we all waved bye-bye to it as we left Marseille 14 hours later than were were meant to leave the city, it had been wrangled by then and tethered to a tug...

It could have been worse though....we could have ended up like this :

http://www.seanews.com.tr/article/ACCIDENTS/88730/napoleon-bonaparte-ferry-marseilles/

She had her bottom sliced and was in drydock along with the ex P&O Artemis (now Phoenix Reisen's Artania) in Marseille.

Another point about the buoy last week aboard Pacifica..and why we had to use tugs from Marseille onwards and why - apart from the permanent repairs to her side - she will require drydocking in either January or February depending on availability of drydock facilities...

When the buoy broke loose from its anchor chains, those chains belted two of her bow thrusters, thus knocking them offline. Although no hull damage was done under the waterline, she did suffer damage to plant down there.

The drydocking will be for around 2-4 weeks and will mean cancelled cruises....the company are still sorting the "when".....if is not a case of "if" she will be taken out of service.

During the drydock she will have her usual annual maintenance brought forward, have the damaged hull plating that was temporarily covered to prevent water ingress cut out including the large dented/scraped areas and replaced, she will have the extensive interior damage to the crew areas repaired (mainly offices and part of the crew mess bar/dining room) and the bow thrusters will be replaced and/or repaired as required.

It is blatantly obvious that Uniall, Max and a few others on this thread have NEVER stepped aboard one of this type of ships, so let me enlighten you about them and how BADLY they are designed internally. It might actually make you realise just what a bloody miracle it was that over 4000 got off Concordia.

1. Out of 14 pax decks, just ONE is accessible through public areas from stem to stern...this being Deck 5. All other decks have to be accessed either by up or down one or two decks and across...ie an indirect and from what I saw, many pax were confused and had to by guided by crew 2-3 days after boarding due to getting lost.

2. The theater is on decks 3, 4 & 5 forward, two restaurants midships & aft over decks 3 & 4. To get from the restaurants to the theater (or vice versa) its either one or two decks up and through a bottleneck on deck 5. I say bottleneck....let me explain....on either side of the atrium there are footways of 10-15ft wide, the footway on either side of the atrium on deck 5 is less than 5ft wide...so you have 2000 coming from the theater meeting 1500 coming from the restaurants and you get total bedlam on deck 5 atrium.

3. Muster stations are on deck 4, outside. Access points are around 10-15ft intervals down each side of the ship. This is where you muster/board the lifeboats. These areas and the doors leading to the muster stations are VERY POORLY signposted and marked, signage is approx 4" square - the standard green background muster signage BUT on dark brown doors, unlit signage so potentially hard to see if you have a visual disability.

4. Outer boat deck/prom deck...this is on deck 3 and there are ONLY 2 doors on each side of the ship that lead to this area, these doors are on the atrium sides only...essentially you have a full length wooden floored prom deck under the lifeboats that can only be accessed via a total of 4 doors....totally ridiculous situation, another bottleneck.

5. General signage around the ship is frankly abysmal...the decor is dark and signage is also dark and very small, so if you have any form of visual disability, you would be in trouble...no emergency signage is illuminated, only the floor markers as per SOLAS.

The ship is huge at 114,500 tonnes, yet the use of interior space is abominable. The crew feel the same way, they hate the ship's layout...you have countless corridors that lead nowhere, countless corridors that are like rabbit warrens with no signage to help you. The stair towers are marked with signage that is colour coded but those signs are NOT illuminated, so on emergency lighting, you cannot tell where you are (NCL have a great scheme on their Jewel class, bright coloured carpeting in each stair tower plus the fish swimming forwards in the corridors...simple and effective and excellent way of helping pax find their way around).

The atrium on these ships is one of the worst I have come across in 25 cruises...dark, crampt, poorly designed and those glass elevators...NOT at all as impressive as they look in the PR photography. And NO escape from deck 5 in an emergency without going downstairs to decks 3 or 4 and even then its hard to find your way to the correct muster or emergency exit due to lack of decent signage.

Now before you start jumping about it being a Costa thing.....it is NOT.

The Carnival Conquest class and the Concordia class (which includes Carnival Splendor) are ALL designed internally like this. The Carnival Dream class is also of similar layout internally with exact same bottlenecks and poor flow/signage issues.

Belting these ships out in conveyor belt system is all well and good, but compared to the original Carnival Destiny class ships, these larger ships are incredibly badly designed internally.

Whoever did the final cut in the floorplan design and access across the decks frankly needs shooting cos the lack of more than one deck in the public areas giving stem to stern access is potentially lethal.

One of the best ships I personally have sailed on for deck access is Costa Victoria (her sisters are Norwegian Sun and Norwegian Sky)...three decks internally with full stem to stern access through public areas, wide footways throughout - including around the atrium areas, simple/uncomplicated public room layout and brilliant signage.

The difference...apart from their size...is that Victoria, Sun and Sky are German built and they took longer to build than the Italian built Conquest/Concordia/Dream class ships.

The Concordia/Dream/Conquest class ships are fine for longer cruises but wholly unsuited to short or bus-stop type cruising where pax change on a daily basis and where those pax have little or no chance to really figure out the floorplans. There were hundreds that got lost on Pacifica, due to new pax boarding on 5 of the 6 days, they never had the chance to get to know the ship.

When I boarded in savona we had a full muster drill on deck 4 outside....subsequent embarking pax had a film to watch in an allotted by language public room and they could watch it again on their cabin TV. Unfortunately with a bus stop type cruise, there is no better way of doing the mustering as having everyone out on deck 4 every port day would be impossible and inefficient since many of the existing pax already on board from previous port days would be out on shorex.

Another point of interest is that these ships are not suited to Mediteranean in winter, Pacifica was blown around like a ragdoll...as Tonk alluded earlier, they are slab sided lumps of metal that are caught by wind gusts incredibly easily. The Mediterranean can be VERY stormy in winter and these ships are really built for calm seas...they have shallow draught, flat bottoms and way too much above the waterline to assist in maintaining stability.

So insofar as these ships are concerned, they DO have design issues that COULD POTENTIALLY prove lethal if the right set of circumstances came along.

Italy prosecutors wind up Costa Concordia ship investigation

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/italy-prosecutors-wind-costa-concordia-ship-investigation-170006087--finance.html

So now the REAL investigation starts.

The Italian way is to have a criminal investigation first and then hand it over to the qualified investigation team.

The big problem with this system is that the criminal team often have little or no actual experience in what they are "investigating"...this was a frequent problem in aviation accidents where the police took charge of the scene and then promptly shifted wreckage etc without photographing it in-situ first. This leaves the real investigators with a pile of wreckage that has been shifted from it's original position and is thus contaminated.

Maritime accidents are treated in the exact same way as aviation accidents in Italy...so doubtless there will be evidence lost, moved or contaminated with Concordia...thus making any investigation of causal factors much harder to accomplish.

Sadly the Italian way is not helpful to either the investigators nor the families of victims...it also makes things take alot longer than they need to be aswell.

They do not work together on a parallel investigation...the police do their thing and they prevent the maritime investigation team from entering the scene until the police have finished.

Ultimate frustration for those within the maritime agencies but nothing can be done to change how it is done.

OK.....since there are some on this thread who are so blinkered (Max)...let me explain in simple terms what occurred aboard Pacifica last Tuesday (Dec 11).

We arrived off Marseille as scheduled after an overnight sail in very rough conditions from Savona. Winds off Marseille were being recorded as gusting 70-100 kilometers per hour...something that is very common for Marseille.

Less than a fortnight prior to our arrival, a large cruise ferry Napoleon Bonaparte was crushed against the quay and severely holed, causing her to sink by the stern in Marseille. She was in drydock there when we sailed into the port.

The port marker buoy WAS flung into our side during final turns to allow us to berth in Marseille. The marker buoy's anchor chains had snapped thanks to a very strong gust of wind and that same gust blew the buoy into our midships causing substantial damage inside and outside of the hull...the photo's do NOT do the damage justice whatsoever, it was far more significant, needing over 30 hours of repairs in Marseille & later in Palermo.

Due to the cruise being a bus stop itinerary, ie debark/embark in all 5 ports, we had no choice but to enter all 5 ports, regardless of the weather conditions.

November/December 2012 has been the roughest couple months in the Mediterranean for almost a century, with many ships being damaged.

The fact that several hundred Concordia survivors were aboard was purely coincidence, there is no planned cruise for survivors to "sign up" for.

Those who were aboard Pacifica last week were German, French & Italian passengers along with approximately 75 crew from Concordia. They took it upon themselves to sail the route again and were some of the most genuine people that I have ever had the honour of meeting and speaking to.

They all said that on the night that Concordia foundered, they felt nothing...some were in cabins, some were in the Casino or bars and others on the way to/from the theater when she impacted the rocks. They all stated that Concordia had been blacking out alot prior to that night's events...you need to understand that most of these people had sailed aboard her many times and held her as their favourite ship. They knew something was not right on that cruise since she "was not herself"...their words, not mine.

When the evacuation order was given, there was no panic...many thought they would be stood down after a few minutes, others thought they might go to the boats but then be given the all clear.

A small number of other passengers did panic...as is often the case when you have large numbers of people in a confined area....and that feeling of panic did spread but on the whole, according to the survivors I spoke to at length, the feeling was mostly under control...worried, scared but controlled.

One young couple aboard Concordia I knew from an earlier cruise when they were honeymooners. I did not realise that they were on Concordia until they sought me out aboard Pacifica (they saw me with a group of crew and passengers and recognised me). Anyway, they had been aboard Concordia that night, the wife was several months pregnant at the time. When they caught up with me on Pacifica they introduced me to their now 8 month old daughter who they have named after the ship...Maria Concordia. The Pacifica was the daughter's first cruise and they have several others booked with Costa Crociere.

As with the buoy hitting Pacifica, they told me that they did not feel Concordia hit the rocks...and that was something that many of the survivors spoke of...not feeling or hearing anything, hence why they did not immediately feel that the ship was in trouble. Most only realised it was in trouble after the evacuation order was given...as I have already said, Concordia was experiencing electrical problems, so the loss of lighting did not immediately alarm anyone.

Having spoken to these people...including the widow of Sandor Feher, who died aboard Concordia and who was the Hungarian violinist who saved lives that night...it became very clear that initially at least, no-one was truly aware of what had happened nor were they aware of the seriousness of what had happened.

Which is why there is a chance, albeit slight, that those on the bridge did not immediately understand how serious the situation was and that may have been why a delay in issuing the evacuation order occurred. NOT saying that it was definitely the case, but certainly a possible reason for the delay.

Pacifica is an identical ship to Concordia...the harbour marker buoy that was trown into our side was massive, yet no-one anywhere on board knew that we had been hit....my cabin was on the same side as the damage and yet I neither heard a bang or felt a shudder...like you would a smaller vessel.

Last week's cruise was immensely emotional...not just for those retracing their steps almost exactly 11 months to the day from Concordia...but having her sister damaged so brutally and without any sound or movement associated with it, brought home exactly how vulnerable these ships are. The winds were severe for the entire week, we had to try and catch up with the itinerary against heavy seas and headwinds....the usual 16-18 knots max speed was set aside, we sailed at the full 23 knots available every day and we still ran 4-6 hours late, even with the scheduled sea day. Mother Nature had it in for us right from the start.

It may also be of interest that the senior Capt (Russo) who had been with the ship for the previous 6 months, stood aside for my cruise and went on scheduled leave, his replacement (di Gregorio) was replaced in Civitavecchia on my cruise with another captain (Alba).

The itinerary was thrown right out the window, it was an extremely hard cruise for the crew, they worked 20+ hours a day throughout due to our port timings being knocked for six as a result of the Marseille incident.

Heck...the ship was meant to have been dressed for Christmas during the week I was aboard but even that went out the window since the crew did not have the time to do it all.

Passengers waiting for us in Barcelona who were boarding were given 75 euro each for food/drink and given complimentary excursions.

We on board were given 150 euro OBC for the "inconvenience" of leaving Marseille over 12 hours late, thus arriving in Barcelona 14 hours late. We also had complimentary shuttles into Barcelona city center from 1900 when we finally arrived thru 0400...we sailed from Barcelona at 0500 on the 13th instead of 1800 on the 12th.

Out of the full capacity on board a group of Sicilian passengers, around 250 of them, caused a ruckus but then Italian's are VERY supersticious - especially Sicilians - and they were very upset over the buoy collision. The rest of us took things in our stride and did not cause a fuss...especially those who were aboard Concordia since they knew that it could have been alot worse.

Having just returned from Concordia's sistership, Pacifica, a couple of points that need to be made.

Firstly, we had several hundred Concordia pax and crew on board Pacifica. The cruise coincided with the week of the ill-fated cruise 11 months ago and people wanted to remember and reflect. The cruise was immensely emotional for everyone on board.

Secondly, you may or may not realise but Pacifica herself was involved in a nasty incident when arriving at Marseille on December 11. We had experienced bad weather from Savona the evening before and under pilotage we were turning to enter the port of Marseille when a gust of around 100mph took hold of a port marker buoy, broke it free from its anchor chains and slammed it into our side causing severe tearing in the hull above the waterline.

Now...back after Concordia some questioned why no-one felt the impact of the rocks or at least that the impact appeared minimal depending on where you were on the ship at the time.

The buoy that was literally thrown into our side aboard Pacifica was huge, it was steel and steel reinforced concrete with a very heavy chain dangling off the underside.

No-one...absolutely no-one....felt that buoy's impact...there wasn't a bang, there wasn't a shudder...nothing whatsoever felt or heard.

The buoy hit us midships across decks 0 and 1, about four feet above the waterline. It left a dent of around 40m x 5m and two gashes, one 30m x 2m and the other 20m x 1.5m.

My cabin was midships on the same side and I felt/heard nothing...and those in the balcony cabins directly above the impact felt/heard nothing.....and since it was just before breakfast, most were still in their cabins.

It wasn't until we started docking that it all became clear that something was wrong. The buoy chain had knocked out two bow thrusters so we needed tug assistance.

We remained in Marseille until just before 10am the next morning to allow steel plating to be welded across the damaged areas of the hull and we were inspected by RINA to ensure that all was seaworthy.

I spoke to many of the Concordia survivors whilst on this cruise and their stories were often harrowing but something that they all mentioned was that they never felt the impact with the rocks that night. The lights went out but since that had happened a couple times already, no-one thought anything of it. When the evacuation orders were given, again, many thought it just a precaution and they would either be stood down at muster stations or at worse go off in boats and then be allowed back on again to continue the cruise as planned.

The important thing is that not one of the 400 or so people that I spoke aboard Pacifica actually felt Concordia's impact with the rocks, they did not think there was any danger.

Which could answer as to why the evacuation order was delayed...if the passengers didn't feel the impact and did not feel that the situation was dangerous, then perhaps those on the bridge were also unaware of the full enormity of the situation and thus did not act as quickly as you might expect.

As a result of our incident, Pacifica will be drydocked in either January or February for permanent repairs to be done. We had no injuries, so that was good. The itinerary was completed but with totally different timings in ports.

But to have such a massive impact and to suffer severe damage and NOT feel it and NOT hear it happen was really quite an eye-opener and made the whole question as to how come no-one knew that Concordia had hit rocks very understandable indeed.

Something that I personally wish that ALL lines did, not just HAL, is when the emergency drill is being done, those pax with mobility issues or any disability whatsoever should be met by their respective crew escorts and taken to the drill in the way that they would if a real emergency occurred.

Such as those who cannot walk...they would meet the crew assigned to them and they would be carried from wherever they are on the ship to the muster station. By doing this, the crew would know the pax and how they would likely react and the pax get to know their assigned crew so in the event of a real emergency those pax would not get so distressed worrying as to how they might escape.

By having crew that are assigned to disabled/elderly/infirm pax for the drill, it would cut down on the levels of anxiety caused by the "what if" and both crew and pax would get to know each others strengths and weaknesses and be ready should the worst happen.

Another hint might be when a captain takes off from port in a storm, or after he was disciplined for speeding into port. Another hint may be when he he knocked a hole in the front of the Concordia when he crashed into the dock.

I believe that you'll find that it was a different captain that caught Concordia's snout in Palermo in 2008...and it was before Schettino had reached captaincy level too.

Schettino was safety officer aboard the ship that I was aboard at the time, Costa Allegra, that was running out of Hong Kong.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081123/local/cruise-liner-damaged-after-leaving-malta.234247