Costa Ship grounded or sinking

[sunsetbeachgal]

Shogun, you are 100% correct...I was channel surfing last evening and watched the BBC evening news and the Costa Concordia coverage was the lead story and reporting was very in depth.

[Princess Patches]

Not that I am contemplating cruising on the Allure or Oasis but if I were, I'd think twice. These ships can't even tender to ports effectively. I'd be very curious to know what the evacuation plans are for these and other super-sized ships which are getting bigger and bigger.

 

This is an important thought and one of my first too. There really should be some maritime law limiting the number of passengers. What if this had happened in the middle of the Atlantic or the weather had been poor? How long can 4,000 or more people bob around in lifeboats in the middle of the ocean before there are enough ships to rescue them? They saved 99% of the Concordia passengers and crew because the weather was good and they were so close to shore, but the potential for loss of life on these megaships is in the thousands if circumstances are less ideal. This should be a wake up call about increasingly larger megaships.

[Shogun]

Hi All

 

We all know that you should be able to all off a ship within 30mins.

 

When they run these drills etc does anyone know they make allowance

 

for the passenger mix, what i am thinking is that on some cruises most

 

folks are over 60, which could mean they need more assistance, or could

 

be slow at climbing rope ladders etc if required to do so.

 

while on cruises there could be loads of families with young children.

 

 

yours shogun

[Princess Patches]

Hi All

 

BBC has some very good reports, the one from the deputy major is a must read he spent 6 hours on the ship

yours Shogun

 

Here is that moving account from the deputy mayor of Giglio who boarded the first tender that came to shore and went out to the ship about 11:00 p.m. He was on the ship when it keeled over and stayed on until the last passenger was off at about 5:30 a.m. He stated he only ever saw one officer on the bridge and it was a very junior officer whom he characterized as a "young boy".

 

It is interesting to note that he states it was easy for him to get up to the bridge because the ship was not listing yet, but he still found no officers there but the one very junior officer. This certainly suggests that the captain and the senior officers left the ship very early even before it began listing badly or had keeled over.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16638399

[Woobstr112G]

This is an important thought and one of my first too. There really should be some maritime law limiting the number of passengers. What if this had happened in the middle of the Atlantic or the weather had been poor? How long can 4,000 or more people bob around in lifeboats in the middle of the ocean before there are enough ships to rescue them? They saved 99% of the Concordia passengers and crew because the weather was good and they were so close to shore, but the potential for loss of life on these megaships is in the thousands if circumstances are less ideal. This should be a wake up call about increasingly larger megaships.

 

It SHOULD be a wake up call, but making the almighty dollar often trumps common sense.....

 

Bob

[lhall85917]

And it continues to get worse...how, I don't know but it does. According to this CNN article the captain ordered dinner for himself and his woman friend AFTER the ship hit the rocks.:eek::eek::eek::eek:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/world/europe/italy-cruise-cook/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

[Aus Traveller]

This is an important thought and one of my first too. There really should be some maritime law limiting the number of passengers. What if this had happened in the middle of the Atlantic or the weather had been poor? How long can 4,000 or more people bob around in lifeboats in the middle of the ocean before there are enough ships to rescue them? They saved 99% of the Concordia passengers and crew because the weather was good and they were so close to shore, but the potential for loss of life on these megaships is in the thousands if circumstances are less ideal. This should be a wake up call about increasingly larger megaships.

There is. Each ship has a maximum number of people (crew and passengers) that is allowed by law. Captains explain this in their 'virtual bridge tour'.

[Princess Patches]

There is. Each ship has a maximum number of people (crew and passengers) that is allowed by law. Captains explain this in their 'virtual bridge tour'.

 

That is not what I meant. Each vessel has a passenger capacity limit, but I meant building new ships with even higher capacity levels than exist today. There should be some discussion of future builds being limited in size/passenger capacity by maritime law. How high will/can we go without such limit? 300,000 tons? 10,000 people? I do not know, but the prospect is scary in light of this disaster.

[robgvic]

Maritime law or not,passengers always have the choice. I for one will never go on a mega ship. Princess ones now are big enough.

[bdjam]

OK - but if you fix the root cause, you fix the errors that follow that cause the event. Costa's ineffectiveness when evaluating the abilities of someone to command their ships may have caused the whole thing.

 

I am not going to debate the ROOT cause of this disaster, but plans need to be sufficient to account for several cascading errors or failures occurring in a row not just a single event. The cargo 4000+ passengers and crew are to precious.

 

BTW, the news is reporting the ship may yet sink so my previous concerns about listing in deep water and getting VERY FEW life rafts in the water is a very real issue and design deficiency in these ships.

[Katelab]

OK - but if you fix the root cause, you fix the errors that follow that cause the event. Costa's ineffectiveness when evaluating the abilities of someone to command their ships may have caused the whole thing.

 

We agree fixing the root cause is very positive

 

But fixing a crazy captain show boating by a bunch of rocks by an island is only one weird example. You have to eliminate weird collisions, weird terrorist attacks, odd hard to predict events, etc. ....

 

You still need robust safety that can tolerate these rather odd events and still result in safe passengers with out getting lucky. These ships do not seem robust enough safety wise especially in cold water regions where people jumping off the ship would have resulted in death due to hypothermia and not swimming to shore and only cutting their feet on the rocks.

 

Alaska and north sea cruises do not seem as safe as they use to and I do not know how they can fix it. Warm water cruising has a lot more tolerance for various errors.

[robgvic]

I'm curious why you woudl say Alaska and North Sea cruises are not as safe. They have not had any sinkings but one in the Med certainly did.

 

 

We agree fixing the root cause is very positive

 

But fixing a crazy captain show boating by a bunch of rocks by an island is only one weird example. You have to eliminate weird collisions, weird terrorist attacks, odd hard to predict events, etc. ....

 

You still need robust safety that can tolerate these rather odd events and still result in safe passengers with out getting lucky. These ships do not seem robust enough safety wise especially in cold water regions where people jumping off the ship would have resulted in death due to hypothermia and not swimming to shore and only cutting their feet on the rocks.

 

Alaska and north sea cruises do not seem as safe as they use to and I do not know how they can fix it. Warm water cruising has a lot more tolerance for various errors.

[bdjam]

Unfortunately I don't know the extent of the safety procedures on board cruise ships. I would say that the current procedures are rather robust in that even ships that have failed at sea (engine room fires for example) have had minimum losses. I've been wondering how these mega ships would evacuate in a disaster for a while now and while Concordia wasn't the best example of safety procedures, I don't know that they aren't already robust enough. I hope that the Italian government will perform a full inquiry into the incident so that further safety procedures can be added if necessary.

 

But we need to remember that one thing that cannot be trained or provided for is the passenger reaction. Crews on board are drilled every week - passengers go to a muster drill maybe once a year and don't have to do anything that they would do in a real emergency besides show up. Panicky passengers don't help a well trained crew to perform.

 

You still need robust safety that can tolerate these rather odd events and still result in safe passengers with out getting lucky. These ships do not seem robust enough safety wise especially in cold water regions where people jumping off the ship would have resulted in death due to hypothermia and not swimming to shore and only cutting their feet on the rocks.

 

Alaska and north sea cruises do not seem as safe as they use to and I do not know how they can fix it. Warm water cruising has a lot more tolerance for various errors.

[geocruiser]

I'm curious why you woudl say Alaska and North Sea cruises are not as safe. They have not had any sinkings but one in the Med certainly did.

 

The only sinking of a cruise ship in Alaska's water that I know of was Holland America's Prinsendam in 1980

 

http://juneauempire.com/stories/092904/sta_prinsendam.shtml

[1 HappyCruiser]

 

But we need to remember that one thing that cannot be trained or provided for is the passenger reaction. Crews on board are drilled every week - passengers go to a muster drill maybe once a year and don't have to do anything that they would do in a real emergency besides show up.Panicky passengers don't help a well trained crew to perform.

 

That's exactly the extent of it....know where and when to go and what to bring. Other than that the crew is responsible for an orderly & successful drill. Even with some of the people on the Costa ship not having muster training they did pretty well considering the lack of leadership from the officers and just followed those passengers that knew what they were doing.

[Katelab]

I'm curious why you woudl say Alaska and North Sea cruises are not as safe. They have not had any sinkings but one in the Med certainly did.

 

Sinkings are unlikely weird events and I would not say alaska or north sea are more or less likely

 

But the temperature of the water is so low you will quickly die

 

If a bad disaster occurs and they can not launch all the life boats you can last a lot longer in warm water than cold water. Long enough to likely be rescued by near by ships coming to the rescue

[gooch47]

That is what I was thinking. Our next cruise is to the South Pacific. so the water will be warmer. I remember thinking about how cold the water was on our trip around South America, Alaska and crossing the North Sea.

[6pack]

Marine life would certainly be more of a concern in the South Pacific. In either case, leaving the ship would always be last resort.

[nschurr]

And it continues to get worse...how, I don't know but it does. According to this CNN article the captain ordered dinner for himself and his woman friend AFTER the ship hit the rocks.:eek::eek::eek::eek:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/world/europe/italy-cruise-cook/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

 

The clue that the ship was in trouble should have been when the Captain ordered his dinner to go:eek:

[1 HappyCruiser]

The clue that the ship was in trouble should have been when the Captain ordered his dinner to go:eek:

 

All joking aside, obviously he didn't think there was a major problem at that time.

[hcw80]

The only sinking of a cruise ship in Alaska's water that I know of was Holland America's Prinsendam in 1980

 

http://juneauempire.com/stories/092904/sta_prinsendam.shtml

 

The Juneau Fire Department was called out to round up the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell, which was in Juneau to celebrate the town's centennial. Firemen retrieved the Boutwell crew from various bars around town, and the Boutwell ended up playing a key role in the rescue

Only in Alaska would it be acceptable to round up the crew from local bars and go on a rescue mission. None of the locals thought that was the least bit strange. I love the pioneer and take no crap attitude of those in Great North West. Others may disagree, but you need hearty, independent and self-reliant folks to populate that area.

[Times Prince]

Posted 1/20/2012 by Princess Cruises on Facebook

[Katelab]

Marine life would certainly be more of a concern in the South Pacific. In either case, leaving the ship would always be last resort.

 

YES a life boat is a far superior choice to going in the water with a life vest.

 

But if the disaster is very bad or the captain does not order an abandon ship until it is to late (Bad PR for a cruise line to order an abandon ship you know)

 

Then the last resort is into the water with a life vest and that likely means death from hypothermia in alaska and north sea

[6pack]

YES a life boat is a far superior choice to going in the water with a life vest.

 

But if the disaster is very bad or the captain does not order an abandon ship until it is to late (Bad PR for a cruise line to order an abandon ship you know)

 

Then the last resort is into the water with a life vest and that likely means death from hypothermia in alaska and north sea

 

I agree, deciding to jump overboard would be a last ditch effort for survival. I would stay on the ship as long as possible. Once you make that decision there is no going back so you better be certain that's your best option!

[Princess Patches]

I agree, deciding to jump overboard would be a last ditch effort for survival. I would stay on the ship as long as possible. Once you make that decision there is no going back so you better be certain that's your best option!

 

Yes, it should definitely be the choice of last resort.

 

I have read that of the 100 or so Concordia passengers who were forced to swim the 100 yards or so to shore when the starboard side rolled under (they were standing on the starboard side deck waiting for a lifeboat), at least two drowned in the short 100 yard swim in calm water.

 

An elderly Frenchman drowned. He knew how to swim but he had given his life jacket to his wife because she did not know how to swim. His wife survived the swim. A 30-year-old Italian woman on her honeymoon also drowned. She had a life jacket but she did not know how to swim. Her husband was separated from her when they were forced into the water and he survived the swim.

 

So even under some of the best possible sea conditions (100 yards in calm water) you can drown.