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Cruise Ship in trouble..


skintsaint

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You can fit ships with all the wonders that todays technology can provide, such as truly accurate charts, precise inertial and GPS navigation, high resolution Radar systems ... etc but the human factor often intervenes. I fully expect this incident will all boil down to yet another case of human error.

 

Most modern airliners have advanced avionic systems that can actively prevent pilots from endangering the flight safety of their aircraft. Rare as incidents such as this are, the consequences can be tragic so perhaps similar technology will find its way aboard our shipping one fine day.

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You can fit ships with all the wonders that todays technology can provide, such as truly accurate charts, precise inertial and GPS navigation, high resolution Radar systems ... etc but the human factor often intervenes. I fully expect this incident will all boil down to yet another case of human error.

 

Most modern airliners have advanced avionic systems that can actively prevent pilots from endangering the flight safety of their aircraft. Rare as incidents such as this are, the consequences can be tragic so perhaps similar technology will find its way aboard our shipping one fine day.

 

Expert in Torygraph indicated could have been a problem in the Power Generation system that caused an electric surge - that would have knocked out critical systems & GPS when ship was close to shore & tied in with the first PA announcements, has happened on Super Cruise Liners before

 

Don't have link open now & it's late but easy to find

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Carnival Splendor is her sister ship, that was the one which had a major engine room fire last year and drifted without power.

Some reports say the ship lost power before hitting the rocks, or that the Captain deliberately grounded her to save her from sinking in open water. In standard Italian fashion he and the 1st Officer have been arrested for manslaughter and abandoning ship before all souls were accounted for.

They're going to get their arses kicked if its true that they hadn't done the muster drill - that should be done prior to leaving port or within the first hour or so at sea. Certainly that's how P&O and Cunard do it...

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K

Carnival Splendor is her sister ship, that was the one which had a major engine room fire last year and drifted without power.

Some reports say the ship lost power before hitting the rocks, or that the Captain deliberately grounded her to save her from sinking in open water. In standard Italian fashion he and the 1st Officer have been arrested for manslaughter and abandoning ship before all souls were accounted for.

They're going to get their arses kicked if its true that they hadn't done the muster drill - that should be done prior to leaving port or within the first hour or so at sea. Certainly that's how P&O and Cunard do it...

 

Definitely reports from a number of passengers that the user drill was planned for this afternoon. As you say I thought it was standard to do almost as soon as the gangplank was up. On the QE recently we had our muster drill as we were sailing down Southampton water.

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A cruise out of Southampton will involve a full exchange of passengers, with a muster and life safety briefing before leaving dock or reaching open sea. With the Italian cruise ships in the Med, the locals will join the cruise at different ports on the itinerary, almost like a ferry. So it's not unusual for them not even to attend a once-weekly muster.

 

I've heard a lot of horror stories from people who've been with Costa and the other major Italian operator, MSC, and personally I wouldn't sail with them. Their accident and safety records over the past 20-30 years have been pretty bad - in particular navigation, collisions and poor safety training.

Edited by Pugwash
MSC
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She must have had a lot of kids.[/quote

 

Casting the 'witicisms' aside, an accident such as this is not totally surprising when one considers the huge amount of open space within the passenger areas.

The only surprise is that this sort of accident has'nt happened before.

There will be water-tight doors fitted, as is right and proper, but were they operated correctly. A ship of that size should have adequate flotation built in even with a 70 ft gash in its side. Remember, the 'Titanic' had water-tight bulkheads but unfortunately the top of the bulkheads were not water-tight and the the sea progressively overflowed into the next compartment

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Will comment fully later as just boarding a flight in Tokyo.

 

When a ship has an exchange of passengers or crew of more than a certain %age (can't remember off the top of my head) she must have a complete muster/drill within 24 hours of departure of that port.

 

With regards to the GPS being knocked out even with a power failure bridge and emergency equipment should automatically be backed up by the Un-interrupted power supply (UPS) which is basically a supply of batteries until the Emergency Generator starts. This should cause no interruption to occur to navigational equipment. SHOULD being the optimum word here.

 

Anyway my flight is being called

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A cruise out of Southampton will involve a full exchange of passengers, with a muster and life safety briefing before leaving dock or reaching open sea. With the Italian cruise ships in the Med, the locals will join the cruise at different ports on the itinerary, almost like a ferry. So it's not unusual for them not even to attend a once-weekly muster.

 

I've heard a lot of horror stories from people who've been with Costa and the other major Italian operator, MRC, and personally I wouldn't sail with them. Their accident and safety records over the past 20-30 years have been pretty bad - in particular navigation, collisions and poor safety training.

 

MSC ship ran aground in the Caribbean last week, and the Poesia had a major fire in the Baltic last summer, she spent 4 days in Southampton undergoing repairs. Costa are part of Carnival so in theory should be following the same fleet regs as Cunard and P&O.

 

For those with an interest in shipping John Heald's blog from the Splendor fire last year is a great read, if only because he's a snarky lechorous Englishman dumped on an Italian-American ship

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Expert in Torygraph indicated could have been a problem in the Power Generation system that caused an electric surge - that would have knocked out critical systems & GPS when ship was close to shore & tied in with the first PA announcements, has happened on Super Cruise Liners before

 

Even a hand held GPS and a chart would have at least ensured knowing where they were. Standard procedure even in a mate's little Westerly on the Solent at weekends. So maybe the steering was affected. The bridge logs are going to be interesting.

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Oh dear....

 

It seems that there is a strong possibility that the accident was caused because the Captain wanted to wave to a friend of his.......

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9016769/Cruise-disaster-Captain-neared-Italian-rocks-to-greet-friend-on-shore.html

 

For those who decry "Racial Stereotyping" or "Clarksonism's" on here I strongly advise that you do NOT read the comments after the article.....

 

For the rest of you - let's just say it appears to have given the world the opportunity to brings back all those school yard jokes about Italian Tanks having 6 gears, 1 forward and 5 reverse

 

I particularly liked this one & the replies it generated

 

Papers here in Ozz saying that Italian men were pushing wives ,girlfriends ,children and the elderly out of the way so that they could board the lifeboats and escape ,free of encumberances.

 

An Ozzie couple claim the voyage saved their marriage.They had booked in the hope of healing a martial rift.However when the wife saw what passed for Italian gallantry ,she realised she was rather better off than any woman unfortunate enough to have an Italian boyfriend ,husband or father.The husband is enjoying his wife's unconfined and new-found adulation.

 

So my advice to any chap whose wife is taking him for granted ,is sign up for the next Italian cruise and let your wife see for herself ,why a British or Australian or American man is so much better than an Italian.Overnight she will come to regard you as a hero, her knight in shining armour and positively worship the ground you walk on.

 

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Morning all,

 

I missed the initial reports as I was without internet in Tokyo, but one thing I would say is that most of the media reports can be ignored as they are factually incorrect. Lots of them can only be described as cr@p.

 

But now to some of the comments above.

 

any competent bridge crew should still be capable of navigating their ship safely using a chart and compass if all else fails - as sailors have done since time immemorial.
The bridge team would have been able to navigate without electronic systems. They should have been fixing on the paper chart using either radar or visual fixes at this range off the coast. However if it was a paperless ship they would not have had this. However they would have been able to manually fix on their ECDIS (Electronic chart system) which should have been supplied by their UPS.

 

Costa are part of Carnival so in theory should be following the same fleet regs as Cunard and P&O.
This is not the case. They merely have to have an approved SMS (Fleet Regs). They more than likely work on a system of Fleet Regs which have evolved from the ones they had before being taken over from Carnival. Princess Cruises used to operate the same SMS as P&O Cruises but since they seperated and P&O and Cunard became Carnival UK, Princess now operate a different SMS (all be it with many similarities - they have simply gone a different route with some things.) The SMS has to meet minimum standards which are inspected during the company and ships ISM audits by the flag state.

 

 

Even a hand held GPS and a chart would have at least ensured knowing where they were.
True in a small boat. However an enclosed Bridge such as that of the Concordia would not have enabled the GPS reciever to gain a signal. It would be much easier to use visual fixing and radar range and bearings in the event of GPS failure at this range from the coast.

 

I heard this today, that he wanted to wave to a friend! Also he did not go done with the ship.... Not a very good captain really, I think he must have won the right in a raffle!
This is being reported in some media sources. However I don't believe this to be true. The Captain may have planned a sail past of the island which apparently is something that has been done before by this ship in this location. "Sail by's" are not un-common. It is being reported by some media sources that he left the ship early and in others that he was the last to leave the vessel. I would be inclined to believe the latter. With regards to not being a very good Captain it should be mentioned that when it was realised the damage was fatal he did his best to manouevre the vessel as close to the land as he could in attempt to beach it and ensure that it did not completely submerge. This would be the recommended action in this event.

 

Now to the incident itself.

 

It is going to be impossible to say why this incident has happened until the official reports come out. This could take quite some time. Once the investigators and company have been able to replay the VDR/VER (or Blackbox as the media insist on calling it) they will be able to see exactly what happened. The VDR takes a feed from the radar, GPS, Gyro etc as well as a feed from microphones located all over the bridge. These microphones, through the software on the computer playback system, can even determine the way someone on the bridge is facing.

 

It is being reported that the ship was miles of course. This is not that unusual and could have been down to a variety of reasons - traffic being one.

 

The Captain in the interview on the Telegraph website (link posted by Dubai Phil) states that the rocks weren't charted. It would be interesting to know if the echo sounder was picking up the bottom at this point. Additionally if the rocks were not charted it would be interested to know if the charts were updated to the most recent updates along with the sounding depths.

 

Reports are stating that the crew were disorganised and were getting in liferafts before passengers. This could be down to the fact that the boat and raft crew must enter and prepare the LSA before passengers can board it. However an interview on BBC breakfast from a crew member pointed out that the rafts were for crew and boats for passengers.

 

Finally (as this is quite a long post now), it should be remembered that over 4000 people were successfully evacuated from the ship. This proves that the evacuation plan did in fact work in what was very difficult circumstances. It is tragic that some lifes have been lost but we should be thankful that so many people were successfully evacuated.

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Morning all,

 

I missed the initial reports as I was without internet in Tokyo, but one thing I would say is that most of the media reports can be ignored as they are factually incorrect. Lots of them can only be described as cr@p.

 

But now to some of the comments above.

 

The bridge team would have been able to navigate without electronic systems. They should have been fixing on the paper chart using either radar or visual fixes at this range off the coast. However if it was a paperless ship they would not have had this. However they would have been able to manually fix on their ECDIS (Electronic chart system) which should have been supplied by their UPS.

 

This is not the case. They merely have to have an approved SMS (Fleet Regs). They more than likely work on a system of Fleet Regs which have evolved from the ones they had before being taken over from Carnival. Princess Cruises used to operate the same SMS as P&O Cruises but since they seperated and P&O and Cunard became Carnival UK, Princess now operate a different SMS (all be it with many similarities - they have simply gone a different route with some things.) The SMS has to meet minimum standards which are inspected during the company and ships ISM audits by the flag state.

 

 

True in a small boat. However an enclosed Bridge such as that of the Concordia would not have enabled the GPS reciever to gain a signal. It would be much easier to use visual fixing and radar range and bearings in the event of GPS failure at this range from the coast.

 

This is being reported in some media sources. However I don't believe this to be true. The Captain may have planned a sail past of the island which apparently is something that has been done before by this ship in this location. "Sail by's" are not un-common. It is being reported by some media sources that he left the ship early and in others that he was the last to leave the vessel. I would be inclined to believe the latter. With regards to not being a very good Captain it should be mentioned that when it was realised the damage was fatal he did his best to manouevre the vessel as close to the land as he could in attempt to beach it and ensure that it did not completely submerge. This would be the recommended action in this event.

 

Now to the incident itself.

 

It is going to be impossible to say why this incident has happened until the official reports come out. This could take quite some time. Once the investigators and company have been able to replay the VDR/VER (or Blackbox as the media insist on calling it) they will be able to see exactly what happened. The VDR takes a feed from the radar, GPS, Gyro etc as well as a feed from microphones located all over the bridge. These microphones, through the software on the computer playback system, can even determine the way someone on the bridge is facing.

 

It is being reported that the ship was miles of course. This is not that unusual and could have been down to a variety of reasons - traffic being one.

 

The Captain in the interview on the Telegraph website (link posted by Dubai Phil) states that the rocks weren't charted. It would be interesting to know if the echo sounder was picking up the bottom at this point. Additionally if the rocks were not charted it would be interested to know if the charts were updated to the most recent updates along with the sounding depths.

 

Reports are stating that the crew were disorganised and were getting in liferafts before passengers. This could be down to the fact that the boat and raft crew must enter and prepare the LSA before passengers can board it. However an interview on BBC breakfast from a crew member pointed out that the rafts were for crew and boats for passengers.

 

Finally (as this is quite a long post now), it should be remembered that over 4000 people were successfully evacuated from the ship. This proves that the evacuation plan did in fact work in what was very difficult circumstances. It is tragic that some lifes have been lost but we should be thankful that so many people were successfully evacuated.

 

Personally, I think the Captain was incompetent and the passengers were left in the dark for too long about what was happening.

 

Poor leadership, and poor work from a lot of crew members who put themselves first. I think a lot of people got out despite the Captain and crew.

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I think it best to wait until any investigations are complete before speculating wildly. What Doubleonothing has said is very informative & clearly written by someone who has knowledge of the industry, unlike the vast majority of posters who are happy to besmirch a mans reputation based on tittle-tattle, and media supposition. I'm very surprised that the ships owners have already laid the blame with the captain before the VDR/VER have been recovered, I wonder if they have something to hide?

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I heard this today, that he wanted to wave to a friend! Also he did not go done with the ship.... Not a very good captain really, I think he must have won the right in a raffle!

 

I have been on lots of P&O, Cunard, Star Cruises etc ships and loads have done sail-pasts, especially around the Italian coast and Islands.

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It turns out that it was a deliberate passage of the ship close to the Giglio island, and it has been done several times in the past

for the joy of islanders. This is video shows the same ship doing the same thing last summer:

 

http://video.corriere.it/nave-concordia-al-giglio-/9dfa5ea6-3e9b-11e1-8b52-5f77182bc574

 

 

In Italian but a couple of videos to look at.

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It turns out that it was a deliberate passage of the ship close to the Giglio island, and it has been done several times in the past

for the joy of islanders. This is video shows the same ship doing the same thing last summer:

 

http://video.corriere.it/nave-concordia-al-giglio-/9dfa5ea6-3e9b-11e1-8b52-5f77182bc574

 

 

In Italian but a couple of videos to look at.

 

One point mentioned in some of the media reports however was that the normal "sail Past" was done on "the other side" of the Island. ie East instead of West or vice versa or topsy turvy. Also this sail past "seems" to have been much closer. there are also contradicting reports - many say the Captain was entertaining at Dinner (as is normal).

 

Only fact we know about is the gap between the impact and the abandon ship order. Clearly the delay from the impact through Damage Assessment to Abandon ship is understandable. However in that time, the ship began to list which from many reports of eye witnesses made the Lifeboat evacuation far more difficult/dangerous than it should have been.

 

No idea if it is relevant but I do have a lot of UPS Industry knowledge, and that the back up power feeds are normally wired into the main circuitry for non-critical systems. IF there was a major Power Surge that took out the Surge Protection/Relays/Fuses then that may have limited their Electric Power to systems.

 

Won't cast blame yet and will only post links if & when I find them. However like any disaster, in any part of the world, some people were heroes and some were....

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From another Forum:-

 

I post these without comment.

 

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/72.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/76.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/77.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/79.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/80.jpg)

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From another Forum:-

 

I post these without comment.

 

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/72.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/76.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/77.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/79.jpg)

 

(IMG:http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/cunardcritic/80.jpg)

 

 

1) fake

2) not fake oops 12 year minimum Prison Sentence

 

Pointless comment "well I had enougha da room when I did it ina da speedboat"

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9018869/Cruise-disaster-captain-neared-rocks-in-Facebook-stunt-for-friends-family.html

 

Ouch

 

It was a stunt for the Head Waiter....

 

Family posted about it happening BEFORE the ship sailed close

 

 

officials saying that the vessel was up to four miles off course.

Edited by dubai_phil
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I find it truly amazing that only 21 are missing/dead.

 

When you consider the number of disabled and elderly on such a cruise. 99,5% indicates a well designed ship and a well trained crew no mater what the papers report.

 

Despite the list and difficulties all the solid life boats were launched.

 

I am fairly sure that our muster drill on P&O was on day 2 and also it did not include live vests. Apparently people don't listen to the instructions on repacking the vest and trip over the straps on their way back to the cabin, causing more injuries than its worth.

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I find it truly amazing that only 21 are missing/dead.

 

When you consider the number of disabled and elderly on such a cruise. 99,5% indicates a well designed ship and a well trained crew no mater what the papers report.

 

Despite the list and difficulties all the solid life boats were launched.

 

I am fairly sure that our muster drill on P&O was on day 2 and also it did not include live vests. Apparently people don't listen to the instructions on repacking the vest and trip over the straps on their way back to the cabin, causing more injuries than its worth.

 

It indicates to me, that they're bloody lucky it capsized in shallow water, if that had been in deep water, you would be talking hundreds, even thousands.

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With the exception of icebergs and engine room explosions if you are going to hole a ship that size it is usually going to be near land. More people died on the Hearald of Free Enterprise which also capsized in shallow water. It also would have had a younger set of customers

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With the exception of icebergs and engine room explosions if you are going to hole a ship that size it is usually going to be near land. More people died on the Hearald of Free Enterprise which also capsized in shallow water. It also would have had a younger set of customers

 

Agreed, but wasn't that at night?

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I find it truly amazing that only 21 are missing/dead.

 

When you consider the number of disabled and elderly on such a cruise. 99,5% indicates a well designed ship and a well trained crew no mater what the papers report.

 

Despite the list and difficulties all the solid life boats were launched.

 

I am fairly sure that our muster drill on P&O was on day 2 and also it did not include live vests. Apparently people don't listen to the instructions on repacking the vest and trip over the straps on their way back to the cabin, causing more injuries than its worth.

 

Not a chance - if you sailed on a P&O ship from Southampton you would have had to attend a Muster/Safety Drill in one of the ships Public Rooms before Sailaway from Southampton.

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