Costa Concordia SINKING

[Zeta3]

Q. So what's special about a Costa Cruise Line excursion?

Ans. You don't have to book... and the ship comes with you!

 

Ouch... That might have been a Gilbert Gottfried, a little too soon... Too raw

[EVALUATOR]

Do you question your chief of police, your 3 star general, your Fire Chief, your wife?

 

You start changing that and you will have no command structure. I still maintain a 2nd Capt, one slightly sub-ordinate but able to take over if necessary might be more successful a course of action.

 

rgds

:)

 

Absolutely...

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/video-game-sting-takes-down-st-louis-police-210149230.html

 

Stupid comes in all forms.

[Davyjonesrugrat]

I can't wait for a better translation.

 

By the way...who is Roberto Bosio? If he is the second in command, then who is the Greek officer? If Bosio was on the bridge, then who was the off-duty Serena captain who started loading the lifeboats?

 

All very, very confusing.

As far as I was led to believe the 2nd Capt (You say Serena Captain) was in fact the 3rd officer Bosio who has been mentioned as being 'disliked' by the Captain and is reported to have acted heroically during the incident after the Captain deserted his bridge.

 

I might be wrong though but its seems to ring true

 

rgds

:)

[Charles4515]

To quote a recent TV program (which was not kind to Carnival) Cruising is still safer than crossing the street.

 

Picking on one incident on one day to use as a brush for an entire industry is simply not fair. Also, I'm not picking out just any old ten years, I am referring to the last ten years.

 

If you want to refer to the last day, then how many people died as a result of a Costa ship accident yesterday? None. Thus it must be safe. This analysis makes as much sense as yours, since I am using the same amount of data (one day) as you are, and my data is more resent than yours, thus more relevant.

 

Cruising is safer than driving your car. Do you drive?

 

How would you know if cruising is safer than how I drive? You don't know me.

 

If you mean that cruising is safer than driving in general that really is not the question. I actually don't have to drive but I have to cross the street. I don't have to cruise. Or I don't have to cruise on a Carnival brand. This disaster should not have happened. Thirty lives should not have ended.

[Zeta3]

My understanding is that Bosio is a captain (staff captain?) on the Serena and he was On board Concordia to head home to Savona for holiday. He went to the bridge when the incident occurred. At some point there was discussion amongst the officers on the bridge regarding turning control of the ship over to Bosio. This was in one of the early reports.

[scubacindy]

Being a scuba diver myself and having completed rescue certification I can appreciate the efforts of the divers. It is a very dangerous and risky service that they are providing. What I don't understand is what the point of searching in the propellers is going to do?

 

Why videos of the divers poking their heads into the props, there would not be any souls to find in there. It would seem that the best efforts that they can do will be to enter each of the levels that are underwater and go cabin by cabin. Yes this is tedious, but if they have enough teams working this they should be able to achieve it, I am sure that they have the floor plans by now and should be planning each dive to cover certain grids on the floors to search.

 

Just my thoughts on this from a divers perspective.

 

ScubaCindy

[CruisinGrams]

I wonder how much this incident is going to hurt the cruise industry. Most of the best cruise lines that provide affordable but luxurious cruises are owned by Carnival. I know after hearing about what transpired I am thinking the Captain is a pathological liar. But what if he is actually telling the truth, even in a small way. Are these kinds of deviation from normal shipping routes happening routinely – I hope not. If this is common practice, how could these things go un-noticed by the parent company, and if that could happen on Costa could it also happen on other Carnival owned lines. There seemed to be a complete breakdown of chain of command that cost so many lives. This tragedy seems to be a result of multiple human errors and innocent people who depended on the Captain to guide the officers and crew chose to abandon his passengers. Too many lies out of the Captain lead me to believe that there were/are many, many other rules being broken on this ship, and I am sure that as time goes by we will know much more about the mis-management on the Costa Concordia.

In 2009 we sailed out of Civitavecchia not on Costa but another Carnival owned line. When we had our life boat drill out of Civitavecchia there were no officers present at our end of the ship. It was very hard to understand the severe broken English of the crew members who did not seem to have the self-confidence (or experience) to take control of the passengers. It went so badly that we had to do it again the second morning with officers present. I thank God that the officers took their responsibility seriously and took charge to ensure that the passengers understood the importance of the life boat drill. Although there were some language problems there were many passengers who were pretty rude about the second life boat drill who had a total disregard for the instructions, chatting and making it hard for anyone to actually hear what the crew member was saying.

I know that the economic downturn over the past few years has seriously affected the cruise industry. I know we did notice a lack of officer presence on decks, a severe lack of service from the crew on deck and in the dining room and bars and even from the room stewards on our sailing in the Mediterranean. Even the Purser staff were terribly over worked and frazzled, which I have never seen before on any of our cruises. Could it be that the cruise lines are cutting back and hiring less trained and inexperienced staff and officers? Is the training of the officers lacking in some way due to cut backs?

I am confident that this horrible, tragic incident will result in improved procedures for all cruise lines. I sincerely hope that Carnival will take a close look at the way all of the Costa cruise ships are being managed from the top down. To say it will never happen again would be foolish. To learn from the experience and do a better job in selecting the right officers to ensure that they are capable to handle crisis situation may save more lives "in case" it happens again.

God bless all of the people who survived, and condolences for the families of the victims.

[Charles4515]

Do you question your chief of police, your 3 star general, your Fire Chief, your wife?

 

You start changing that and you will have no command structure. I still maintain a 2nd Capt, one slightly sub-ordinate but able to take over if necessary might be more successful a course of action.

 

rgds

:)

 

If someone is going do something unsafe I not only question them I take action to stop them. In my occupation I am required to do that. And if I am in charge my crew is required to take action. The same should be on the bridge of a ship. If the Captain is heading toward a crash then the crew should stop the ship.

[Milaandra]

 

Italian newspapers yesterday claimed Schettino has admitted being with Miss Cemortan at the time and that she was not on the official passenger manifest.

 

This week The Weekly World News has announced that Earth Will Collide with Nibiru on July 12, 2012.

 

Personally, I'm not changing my vacation plans.

[reallyitsmema]

Being a scuba diver myself and having completed rescue certification I can appreciate the efforts of the divers. It is a very dangerous and risky service that they are providing. What I don't understand is what the point of searching in the propellers is going to do?

 

Why videos of the divers poking their heads into the props, there would not be any souls to find in there. It would seem that the best efforts that they can do will be to enter each of the levels that are underwater and go cabin by cabin. Yes this is tedious, but if they have enough teams working this they should be able to achieve it, I am sure that they have the floor plans by now and should be planning each dive to cover certain grids on the floors to search.

 

Just my thoughts on this from a divers perspective.

 

ScubaCindy

We have no way of knowing if the divers seen by the props were on search and recovery or if they are related to salvage. I doubt all divers are on search and rescue. There is a company there seeing if they can right the ship and another that will be pumping fuel off the ship so I would guess they have divers in the water also.

[bigwalt0176]

Absolutely...

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/video-game-sting-takes-down-st-louis-police-210149230.html

 

Stupid comes in all forms.

 

Agreed. There have been many occurrences when someone in authority has not been questioned regarding their truthfulness or there has been the assumption that the person of authority was credible based on their position only to find out that that was not the case in the absence of any other evidence which was later shown to be false.

 

Just look at the number of people, albeit small, that have been released from prison after DNA or other evidence has found that the original testimony was false. Unfortunately, the accused is given an apology but the false accuser walks away without any penalty. Hopefully nobody is put to death based on the faulty evidence or motives as there is no going back.

[Milaandra]

In the first reports of Schettino being arrested, they took him AND HIS FIRST OFFICER into custody. Yet there seems to have been no further mention of that first officer. Does anybody know what his status is? Is he sitting in a jail cell, forgotten? Remember, he was allegedly in the lifeboat with Schettino.

 

I read that he had been released.

 

The third officer was also allegedly in the lifeboat. She(?) is one of those who testified for the legal proceedings. (according to the baby name guesser, Silvia is usually a female name, but not with enough of a margin for me to be sure)

[Davyjonesrugrat]

Some underwater pictures towards the bottom of this article including the bow and anchor

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/01/inside-the-wreck-of-the-costa-concordia/100229/

Thank you for these photo's some of them were extremely good for sourcing information. One picture I did notice was number 29 of the ships anchor.

 

If you look behind the near anchor chain on the right of the anchor you can see a pile of chain on the seabed. This draws me to the conclusion that the anchor was not used to turn the vessel as I had previously believed as the chain would have been fairly taunt and not piled up like that. That, to me, indicates that the anchor was released when the vessel had already stopped. Any other mariners agree with my call?

 

rgds

:)

[celle]

Even better, lets put a 1nm safety zone off the whole coastline and then we wouldnt have problems of 'sail-bys'

 

rgds

:)

 

The Costa cruise ship sinking after doing a risky sail-by is not without precedent.

 

On 16 February 1986, the Russian-owned cruise ship Mikhail Lermontov hit rocks and foundered off the coast of New Zealand, while doing a similar, risky sail-by to that done by Costa Concordia.

 

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page about Mikhail Lermontov:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Mikhail_Lermontov

[EVALUATOR]

Thank you for these photo's some of them were extremely good for sourcing information. One picture I did notice was number 29 of the ships anchor.

 

If you look behind the near anchor chain on the right of the anchor you can see a pile of chain on the seabed. This draws me to the conclusion that the anchor was not used to turn the vessel as I had previously believed as the chain would have been fairly taunt and not piled up like that. That, to me, indicates that the anchor was released when the vessel had already stopped. Any other mariners agree with my call?

 

rgds

:)

 

Not only do I agree. In court he admitted he lied and never put down the anchor until they asked him to. It was heard being dropped in one of the calls to the ship.

 

one link of many

[bigwalt0176]

Thank you for these photo's some of them were extremely good for sourcing information. One picture I did notice was number 29 of the ships anchor.

 

If you look behind the near anchor chain on the right of the anchor you can see a pile of chain on the seabed. This draws me to the conclusion that the anchor was not used to turn the vessel as I had previously believed as the chain would have been fairly taunt and not piled up like that. That, to me, indicates that the anchor was released when the vessel had already stopped. Any other mariners agree with my call?

 

rgds

:)

 

May want to take into account the slack that may have been contributed by the ship heeling over on that side once it came to a stop.

[Davyjonesrugrat]

With all due respect, are you one of the senior citizens that are just comfy with the status quo when modern technology can improve safety for you and your family?

 

I am not advocating that a HQ land based command center commandeer operations, no more than I would advocate a control tower taking charge of the plane's cockpit.

 

I am advocating that the command center takes a more pro active role in monitoring the bridge and actions of the bridge, including stats on board. I am advocating that they validate that all is normal and issue safety recommendations or equivalents.

 

I also advocate that black boxes are essentially antiquated relics from a by gone era. All planes and ships can be sending black box type of data to the home base command center in real time. The black box concept is still okay to keep on planes and ships, but, nowadays, they can be supplemented with transmissions of data and communications back to a black box at the command center for example.

 

It is inevitable that you will not get your way, as technology marches on and someday my suggestions will occur. That is the evolution of technology.

Who are you asking this question to ?

 

Rgds

:)

[Davyjonesrugrat]

If someone is going do something unsafe I not only question them I take action to stop them. In my occupation I am required to do that. And if I am in charge my crew is required to take action. The same should be on the bridge of a ship. If the Captain is heading toward a crash (No one saw the sub surface rock) then the crew should stop the ship.

Ooops crystal ball time !!!

 

So what might be unsafe to you might not be unsafe to them. In my line of work I make life saving decisions, I make decisions that can overrule Captains of ships if I feel the situation requires it, but I still would not consider you suggestion as the way ahead. You are tarring all Captains through the actions of one !

 

We need a constructive approach not one with more 'command rooms' that could cause mis-information or mixed command decisions

 

 

rgds

:)

[Davyjonesrugrat]

May want to take into account the slack that may have been contributed by the ship heeling over on that side once it came to a stop.

I put my hand up on this one for I firmly believed that the Capt would have used it sensibly and thus turned the ship to face the harbour, it now appears that it was turned by other means. Yes the amount of chain out might well have added to the vessel keeling to starboard quicker

 

rgds

:)

[Beachin2]

Apparently, there will be no black box data. Boxes had been broken for 2 weeks!

 

http://news.yahoo.com/confrontation-grows-between-italy-captain-ship-group-145346862.html

 

Unacceptable.

[reallyitsmema]

I put my hand up on this one for I firmly believed that the Capt would have used it sensibly and thus turned the ship to face the harbour, it now appears that it was turned by other means. Yes the amount of chain out might well have added to the vessel keeling to starboard quicker

 

rgds

:)

There is another either picture or video that has the anchor in it and I am trying to find it now. It is from the opposite angle and you can see chain laid out, not just piled up. It isn't as close up a view and gives you a better idea as to the anchors proximity to the ship. Wish I had posted it when I first saw it.

[Enigm@]

As far as I was led to believe the 2nd Capt (You say Serena Captain) was in fact the 3rd officer Bosio who has been mentioned as being 'disliked' by the Captain and is reported to have acted heroically during the incident after the Captain deserted his bridge.

 

I might be wrong though but its seems to ring true

 

rgds

:)

 

I totally agree. I don't think we can say for sure who Bosio was. The first report I read was that he was an officer on the Concordia...known not to get along with Schettino, who eventually took over after the Captain still refused to act once he'd finished on the 'phone. The next day I read a report which named Bosio as the Captain of the Serena "hitching a lift" back to Savona. Which is correct? I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at the moment.

 

The other anomaly is the identity of the second officer. In the transcipt here.. http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16150968 he is named as Dimitri ??????, a Greek I believe, but in later reports it seems a Cirio Ambrosio was the officer arrested with him. Is he the third in command?

 

Milaandra

You asked earlier about a couple from Kent. I saw a TV interview with them when they arrived back at Heathrow but as far as I remember, nothing was said about the times & how many were on the lifeboat with them. It was more about what happened during dinner & time on the ship. They did say that they were on the lifeboat for a long time, maybe an hour, as it kept getting stuck on the side of the ship because of the list.

Your hypothesis could be right, & who knows, they have read reports themselves & thought she must have been on the lifeboat with them, but as far as I'm aware, there haven't been any interviews to that effect.

[greg-nc]

Costa PR team would like you to know that everything is just a matter of perspective...

 

[shipfriend_max]

I am wondering...

Why don't they begin to pump out the fuel??? I think they can't wait much longer, because the danger of environmental problems should be taken serious! IMO, ther's no chance to find any living people... :(:(

Do they use the method to search for bodies and pump out the fuel simultaneously? It would be senseful...

[TLCOhio]

Sadly, the news from Italy on this Costa ship continues sad and confused. Here are a couple more stories in the past hour or so this afternoon with added details, updates. especially on Carnival and how this impacts them.

 

From the Miami Herald in the last hour, they have this headline: "Carnival too big to let Concordia sink profits" with these highlights: "On an average day, about 50,000 people around the world board cruise ships to start their vacations. Half of them set to sea on a vessel owned by Carnival Corp. Those odds help explain why analysts think the world’s largest cruise company will suffer only a temporary setback as it grapples with the Costa Concordia. Forecasts by Barclays and UBS agree the dramatic capsizing will cost Carnival about 20 percent of its profit this year —roughly a $400 million loss. But with 99 remaining ships spread out over nine brands, Carnival’s profits should still approach $1.5 billion by December. The Concordia loss will be 'a lot of money,' said Robert Kritzman, a Miami maritime lawyer who served as Norwegian Cruise Line’s general counsel, 'It’s not significant to a company that size...It’s not going to have a major impact on the company.' Thirty-three years after taking over the company from his late father, Ted, and turning it into a global leader, Carnival CEO Micky Arison faces perhaps the biggest test of his tenure. The 62-year-old is one of the country’s more recognizable CEOs given his added celebrity as the owner of the Miami Heat. But 10 days into the crisis, Arison has stayed out of sight and communicated only in written statements offering condolences and assurances that Carnival ships are safe. Meanwhile, Costa’s senior executives in Italy have led the public response: meeting with survivors, holding press conferences and offering the company’s take on a grounding they -- and maritime authorities -- are blaming on a rogue captain. Industry watchers say that approach meshes with Arison’s philosophy of letting Carnival’s various fleets, including its flagship Carnival brand, operate with autonomy. Unlike the top-down approach at Carnival’s hometown rival, Royal Caribbean, Carnival lines have much more leeway to plot their own strategies."

 

From Telegraph in London, they have this headline: "Costa Concordia: operation complicated by unregistered passengers" with these highlights: "Around 20 people are still missing, including French passengers, an elderly American couple, an Italian father and his five year old daughter and Indian and Peruvian crew members. As the death toll from the disaster rose to 13 after divers recovered a woman's body from the stern of the luxury liner, Franco Gabrielli, head of the Civil Protection Authority, said there could have been 'clandestine' passengers on board. 'There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine' passengers aboard the ship, said Mr Gabrielli. The family of a Hungarian woman who was not registered on the ship, insist that their daughter telephoned them from the Concordia and that they have not heard from her since. The suggestion of clandestine passengers raises the possibility that either a crew member or a passenger smuggled a friend or companion on board the ship. Another possibility is that some crew members were not registered properly because they were working on the ship illegally."

 

Full stories at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/22/2602458/carnival-too-big-to-let-concordia.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9031304/Costa-Concordia-operation-complicated-by-unregistered-passengers.html

 

THANKS! Terry in Ohio

 

Did a June 7-19, 2011, Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik. Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc., on these postings. We are now at 58,753 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1426474