Don't blame our virtual admirals...real ones are....

[GreyJoy]

...not that better

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16558910


[:o][:-][:-]

[mike scholl 1]

Seems Italian drivers are no better with boats than they are with cars... [:D]

[dorjun driver]

If it weren't for the loss of life, that is the funniest thing (AMB!) I've seen this morning.

[pompack]

Two interesting points

1) the gash is not that big in terms of fraction of waterline-length.

2) it sank due to loss of stability when it listed to the opposite side of the damage

[Gunner98]

Those things are built like Container ships for people - straigt up - obviously on a very fine ballance point.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

Those things are built like Container ships for people - straigt up - obviously on a very fine ballance point.

Yep, they hole was significant and the water came in fast. With any ship if it is coming in faster than you can counterflood then you will have a problem. I don't really know how stable these pleasure palaces things are but would assume that the design is not flawed.

[viberpol]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
...not that better

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16558910

[:o][:-][:-]

Well, it seems she's been sinking quite long close to the shore and with all lights on...
But imagine what would have happened if she was at sea and the weather was bit worse...

[n01487477]

Sorry for the deceased but that is going to take a bit of pumping out

[GreyJoy]

It seems that they hit a rock at 500mt from the coast and then the cpt when he understood the ships was going to sink has brought her to swallower waters...they went off the route because the cpt wanted to make the passengera see the little village on the isle they were passing by....[:-]

[21pzr]

While the article GJ attached is the first I've actually read about the incident, I am a 36 year merchant ship Chief Engineer, and former cruise ship Chief.

A few observations:

1. Gunner98: while container ships look to be very high and unstable, the amount of weight below decks actually makes them very stable. A cruise ship on the other hand is rather "tender" (rolls quite easily), which is why they are usually equipped with fin stabilizers (one of which is seen in the photo showing the damaged hull, projecting up aft of the damaged area).

2. Cruise ships carry very little ballast water, and have few ballast tanks, so listing due to flooding of empty tanks, and counterflooding is not really significant. We routinely were asked by the bridge to transfer potable (drinking water) from side to side of the ship as the most effective means of list correction. A cruise ship of this size would carry 3000+ tons of drinking water.

3. I don't see much evidence of an oil slick, so it doesn't appear to have holed a fuel tank.

4. Most cruise ships are rated as "2 compartment" ships, meaning that any two adjacent watertight compartments can be flooded without loss of the vessel. A ship this size would normally be divided into 15 or so watertight compartments along the length of the ship. These compartments are provided with hydraulically operated sliding doors at each deck up to the "waterline" deck (usually decks 0-3). These doors are in all engineering spaces as well as crew quarters, and when closed (supposed to be at all times while at sea), they cause lots of wandering up and down ladders to get from one area to the other. I would suspect that the gash visible in the photo breached 3 compartments. Why she rolled to the opposite side? Perhaps the automated anti-heel ballast pumps reacted to the initial list, and then the free surface of the water in the engineering spaces carried her over.

5. Most cruise ships have redundant engine rooms, where every system is separated from the other engine room. That would explain the lights staying on, while the forward engine spaces flooded.

6. Cruise ships are required to have 100% capacity of lifeboats/liferafts ON EACH SIDE of the ship, so that when you cannot lower boats on one side due to list, everyone can go to the other side (which will not help the list, either!). Usually, only the paying customers have seats in the boats, the crew uses rafts.

7. The ship sailing without having a passenger emergency drill, scheduled for later that evening, is pretty common in some companies. The law states that the drill must be accomplished within 4 hours of sailing. US flag cruise ships have their drills prior to sailing. The lack of organization and inability to properly deploy lifesaving equipment is fairly common among foreign flag (non-US) crews. Extensive training ashore as well as onboard, and quarterly USCG witnessed drills are some of the reasons that US flag operation of ships is more expensive than foreign flag ships.

8. Every major cruise ship sailing from US ports (Miami, Port Everglades, New York, etc) is foreign flagged with a foreign crew. This could easily happen here. There is only ONE US flagged large cruise ship in the world, NCL's Pride of America, working the Hawaiian Islands.

Just my two cents, and a rant for people to think about when deciding that US flagged shipping is not required.

Bill

[21pzr]

I just decided that I couldn't let Dorjun Driver's comments go. Only someone who has never been to sea could call any maritime disaster "the funniest thing I've seen". Stating that "If it weren't for the loss of life" is like asking, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?".

What people don't realize is that a ship at sea (even one that close to shore) is its own universe. Shoreside emergency responders are rarely equipped or trained to assist a ship's crew in an emergency. While on the cruise ships in Hawaii, we regularly had tours by the Honolulu Fire Department. They were routinely amazed at the capacity of our firefighting, lifesaving, and emergency equipment. For instance, if the ship is alongside a berth, and on fire, the only real aid the fire department could give would be boundary cooling using their trucks on the side of the ship, as each of the ships 4 fire pumps were equal to several of their pumpers, and they would not have been able to add anything to our firemain system, as long as our pumps were running. Also, due to the unique nature of ship construction and layout, they would have had to just supplement our fire teams with their personnel, as they would have most likely become lost, or not known the nomenclature of spaces aboard ship. Even major city fire departments are not familiar with shipboard emergencies, witness the "Normandie" disaster in NYC, and others where ships have sunk at the dock since that time.

As a Staff Chief Engineer aboard a cruise vessel, I was responsible for handling all onboard emergencies as the "on scene commander". While the ship did have an officer billet of "Firefighter", who was normally a trained shoreside firefighter or smoke jumper, we routinely had differences of opinion on how to handle fire teams. A shoreside firefighter is trained to stop what they are doing to save the life of a victim they have found, since the building in flames can be evacuated, and left to burn if necessary. Onboard ship, you cannot evacuate the building (choose to get 3000 people into little lifeboats?), so triage states that the fire teams fight the emergency that threatens the 3000 (the fire) and let the one casualty wait until further help can arrive.

A final note, the practice of varying from standard courses to give the guests a show is quite common in the cruise industry. Cruise lines are under great pressure to give the guests a great experience, and the ships are run by the "Hotel Department" and its requirements. Cruise ship Captains are much more like hotel executives than ship captains, and one of their main concerns on a daily basis is the revenue stream, not necessarily what makes the most sense nautically. Generally, due to the nearly daily port calls, cruise ships do not take local pilots, the Captain and Staff Captain normally have pilotage for all scheduled ports of call.

I just have to add one old curmudgeon statement, that DD's comments show the loss of humanity due to the "social media", when people can make cracks about disasters from far away and in comfort.

Not trying to start a flame war (I hate that stuff on these forums), but while I recognize the humorous slant of GJ's original post title, there is nothing funny about this disaster.

Bill

[GreyJoy]

i regularly sail during summer with my motor boat (11 mt) and have some experience on sailboats also (use to take a 1 week sailboat cruise every summer), so i think i understand what you mean 21pzr. people who are not used to the sea environement don't understand how risky and "on the edge" can be a boat among the waves...even with th tecnology every boat/ship has nowdays.
 
However here it's clear that the captain undervalued the situation...clearly he didn't look at the GPS (those rocks are signaled, i can tell you) and did what every sailor would avoid: putting your ship at risk without any good reason.
Worse, that captain abbandoned the ship while 3000 people were still aboard (they found him while he was trying to swim away!!!) and the whole crew was not trained to this kind of emergencies! Just think about that 90% of the crew didn't speak a word of italian or english...most of them were east european waiters...very few real sailors among them! Some witnesses even said that some of the crews didn't even know how to swim![:-]

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

Seems Italian drivers are no better with boats than they are with cars... [:D]

I'm sorry if this looked disrespectfull of those lost or injured in the incident. It was simply my initial reaction brought on by several days of dodging traffic in Rome some years ago. I appologise to anyone who found it objectionable.

[dorjun driver]

Perhaps because my sea time (tens of thousands of miles) has been under sail twists my idea of "funny". I've been involved in a couple of maritime disasters--on the helping end. No matter how horrific they were, there was always a chortling moment or two. If one can't laugh while weeping, insanity results.

[Dili]

Well they don't crash in Rome mike but this one crashed. I have been in Rome too in 80's at that time was bumper to bumper and red light was just an warning to look to both sides and go. I liked.

[JocMeister]

According to Swedish newspapers the captain had spent most of the night in the bar and not on the bridge. Witnesses are claiming he was in one of the bars at the time of impact...
He is also being charged with manslaughter. Guess that was the last time he commanded something bigger than a rowboat

[sventhebold]

Yes getting behind the wheel in Italy is an experience all it's own. I have and will never forget it.

[21pzr]

GJ: This would not be the first captain to abandon ship before the passengers, a la the "Morro Castle". As I say, "international" crews on cruise ship consist of about 100 professional mariners and 900 hotel staff. Aboard US flag cruise ships, EVERYONE, from the dishwasher to the Captain are required to obtain a Merchant Mariners Document from the USCG, and pass a "Basic Safety course". While all officers on ships, regardless of flag, must be certified as "lifeboatmen" (having passed a course actually handling a lifeboat), the USCG does not allow officers "lifeboatman" certificates to be counted towards the minimum required number of lifeboatmen (since it is assumed that they will have othher duties that would preclude them from manning the lifeboats), meaning that many of our waiters, cooks, and bartenders are USCG certified lifeboatmen. As noted above, many of the staff and crew (guests rarely see the actual "crew" (deck and engine departments) do not speak the same language, yet they are assigned emergency duties. Again, this does not happen on US crewed ships, as everyone must speak English.

As I said in previous post, all of the cruise ships currently operating in the US (except the Pride of America) are crewed similarly to the Costa ships. These ships carry thousands of US passengers every day. Just a thought for when "the boss" tells you she wants to go on a cruise. Unfortunately, while there are many blog sites reviewing cruises, they don't regularly track USCG safety violations, or the training of the crew.

There was another case similar to this last year (I think) where a cruise ship went aground at the Greek island of Santorini, literally on the shore at the harbor entrance, but the ship didn't sink.

Fair winds and following seas to all the sailors out there.

Bill

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

i regularly sail during summer with my motor boat (11 mt) and have some experience on sailboats also (use to take a 1 week sailboat cruise every summer), so i think i understand what you mean 21pzr. people who are not used to the sea environement don't understand how risky and "on the edge" can be a boat among the waves...even with th tecnology every boat/ship has nowdays.

However here it's clear that the captain undervalued the situation...clearly he didn't look at the GPS (those rocks are signaled, i can tell you) and did what every sailor would avoid: putting your ship at risk without any good reason.
Worse, that captain abbandoned the ship while 3000 people were still aboard (they found him while he was trying to swim away!!!) and the whole crew was not trained to this kind of emergencies! Just think about that 90% of the crew didn't speak a word of italian or english...most of them were east european waiters...very few real sailors among them! Some witnesses even said that some of the crews didn't even know how to swim![:-]

Yep as a 10 year merchant seaman and former third mate I can chime in a bit here too. People want the cheapest cruise package they can find for their money. Using a fully trained American or European crew would increase your fares because it cost lots of money to train a sailor properly and then pay him an affordable wage so that they and their families can live well enough in our societies. There are a lot of ships out there but the bulk of them although owned by Western corporations are rarely flagged in the nation of origin but in some third rate "flag of convenience" location.Then staffed with poorly trained crewmen (but usually good sailors) from third world Nations. You certainly would not get on an airplane with crew such as this working it. But people think nothing of boarding these floating hotels under these circumstances. So be it.

In addition, you can not expect the captain to be on the bridge of a ship at all times but you would certainly expect to find a good captain on the bridge whenever a ship is traversing restricted waters. In the end, it does not matter-on the open sea, the captain is always responsible no matter the situation.

[cohimbra]

it is customary for the cruise ships pass close to shore to greet visitors to the inhabitants of the island
(the tourists love it, it's very old Italian style);everyone knows it, normal people, the authorities, the
owner of the company ...no one has ever said or done something, even this in perfect Italian style
(I can tell, I'm Italian). The captain was arrested and suggest three crimes: manslaughter, negligent sinking,
abandon ship.
He was drunk or not nobody knows (at least not us), and may take years to come without anything (it has
happened many times, unfortunately).
The only certainty is that there aren't rocks like this on the high seas:
http://m.sky.it/tg24/cronaca/photogalle ... agio_morti