Discovery channel/re Costa Concordia

[A Sixth?]

Has anyone taken tidal action into consideration? The wind is one thing but current flow is quite another..........Regards.

 

Good point.

 

 

Thank goodness the incompetent captain's, who didn't see any problem for over and hour, passengers save 32 were saved by pure blind luck.

[MDSue]

Has anyone taken tidal action into consideration? The wind is one thing but current flow is quite another..........Regards.

Actually, I'm thinking that might have been mentioned as a factor as well as the wind. I recorded one of the shows- it might be time for me to go back and watch it again. Of course, everything so far is just conjecture- I'm eager to read a final coast guard (or whomever is the official investigators) report. When the Monarch of the Seas hit a reef many years ago, I think it took two years for the official report to be published.

I do believe that passengers or crew onboard might be able to add insight on at least the engines, but they were most likely too busy trying to save their lives instead.

[Highlander0108]

Obviously we'll need to await the outcome of the enquiry before we know the full story. From the reports we've heard' date=' it appears that for some time after the ship was holed, it continued on its journey. It was only when the ship started listing that it was turned around in a desperate attempt to reach the ferry terminal on Isola del Giglio. The ship was too big to reach the harbour and ran aground on a reef near the island. That's when a bad situation became a disaster. Once aground, the ship fell onto its side making evacuation very difficult and trapping many people below water. If the ship had stayed in deeper water, it is likely to have remained afloat for many hours allowing time for an orderly evacuation.

 

A lot of mistakes were made and it is easy to say what should have happened with the benefit of hindsight. At least this incident may have shaken the cruise industry out of its complacency and made them realise that even today's biggest cruise ships can sink if correct procedures are not followed.[/quote']

 

I too have wondered whether it would have been better to have the ship sink in deeper water and whether it would just have gone down by the stern, similar to Titanic, but different ends of the ship. It does appear that the list to starboard happened after the ship grounded on the two points of the rocky shore. Perhaps the additional holing of the ship on this side accellerated the sinking. If she sunk in deeper waters, more upright, surely all of the lifeboats would have been far easier to have been launched with the ship in a more upright position.

 

I still find it hard to believe that the ship made this turn completely 180 degrees around due to the wind. If the captain partially deployed the anchors as has been reported, perhaps this drag turned and slowed the ship and then the wind took over to push it sideways into shore. From the AIS data, the ship did still have speed after hitting the rocks and would have been steerable via the rudders. Even pod propelled ships can be "steered" without power since the pods act as rudders. Would emergency power have provided power to actuate the rudders? Questions to be answered.