Costa Concordia

[QC]

How the heck does this happen?: Cruise Ship Titanic Impersonation

Most of us here understand underwater hazards. Most of us understand our waters and where the serious issues are. Of course newbies learn the hard way. But in this day of radar, plus sonar, plus GPS, plus Google Earth, and Chart plotters, and autopilots tied to all of them and then add in what I would suppose are experienced Captains, Fist mates, and a bunch of highly qualified underlings. How the flip does this happen? I posted recently about the 6 or 7 navy ships that followed each other into rocks, but that was before any of this stuff and I still found it hard to believe. And yes I've heard of this guy Murphy. But what the flip??? If I am anywhere near rocks I keep a close eye on everything. Heck I can navigate a winding river channel with obstacles around every bend, at night, on plane and I don't have radar for flip sake. I don't get it

 

[QC]

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I am going to add. If I was a Passenger on that ship. And I had my Garmin 276 with me, and the correct chart. I could've walked up to the bridge and averted this. Unflippin' believable That would be without any local knowledge, no sonar, no radar, and no stripes.

 

[sasto]

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I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of that captain. I'll be following this, as I'm pretty sure you will be too, QC.

 

[puddle jumper]

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A few years a ferry with many people and automobiles were on went down up here on our coast. This rout was traveled daily.Two people died as well as millions of personal property lost. It happens more than we like to think. The cause of the ferry going down was human error.

 

[aspeck]

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All I am gonna say is, it happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HvmfuGInDc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EJv7Znrix0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3133D5fiDzo

 

[QC]

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Oh, I am sure this is human error, and I have made a number of errors, or been in positions I shouldn't have put myself and my passengers in. The last time I tried to stick her on some rocks, I was just coming off plane, someone dropped a coke and it rolled to my feet. I leaned down and tried to stop the mess (worse than a beer) and one of my passengers yelled "hey" and I looked up and I was heading straight for a small seawall. I hammered her in reverse and just barely tapped it with the bow. Point is that I f'ed up because I stopped looking and I was saved by a passenger yelling at me.

OK, so back to the Cruise Ship. How many people are watching? And when the guy at the wheel drops a coke on his toes, does everybody else stop watching?Aand how close do you have to be for a dropped coke to cause you to hit something? I was within 25 yards. Do you really think they're motoring along within 25 yards of the rocks? OK, so it probably wasn't a dropped coke, but you get my point?

This quote makes me think they were heading straight for it and then someone got a clue, but too late: "they felt an inital lurch, as if from a severe steering maneuver, followed a few seconds later by a "shudder" that tipped trash cans over."

 

[aspeck]

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The one that happened up here was due to the two people who were running the ship had had an affair and were braking up. Due to this they left there posts and hit a under water hazard.

Just goes to prove that breaking up is hard to do ...:facepalm:

QC, it goes back to your coke example and someone was not paying attention. You craft responded within 25 feet. A cruise liner does not ... takes up to a mile to get it to really respond, depending on speed, conditions, payload, etc. You know that drill. So, if someone "fell asleep at the wheel" 1/2 a mile away, you are now up the creek, or in this case rocks.

Bottom line, it doesn't matter how many electronics you have, if you are not paying attention to them, and to what you are doing, then you are in trouble. In the first link I posted, did you see the small runabout hit the Coast Guard Cutter? Did you see where they eyes of the driver (refuse to call him a captain) were looking? Certainly NOT at the water in FRONT of the runabout!!!!!!

Professional crew should now better and pay better attention, but welcome to the human element.

 

[oops!]

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Just goes to prove that breaking up is hard to do ...:facepalm:

QC, it goes back to your coke example and someone was not paying attention. You craft responded within 25 feet. A cruise liner does not ... takes up to a mile to get it to really respond, depending on speed, conditions, payload, etc. You know that drill. So, if someone "fell asleep at the wheel" 1/2 a mile away, you are now up the creek, or in this case rocks.

Bottom line, it doesn't matter how many electronics you have, if you are not paying attention to them, and to what you are doing, then you are in trouble. In the first link I posted, did you see the small runabout hit the Coast Guard Cutter? Did you see where they eyes of the driver (refuse to call him a captain) were looking? Certainly NOT at the water in FRONT of the runabout!!!!!!

Professional crew should now better and pay better attention, but welcome to the human element.

Mornin Art......how ya doin buddy?

i agree with your post about kevins coke can.... and the large vessel needing more time to react.

However....when we are on our pleasure craft.....we can respond fast....so our emergency avoidance is short distance feild of vision.
What i mean.....is that we only need to look a hundred feet in front of the vessel.
In a large vessel ......they need to look miles ahead.. course corrections are minor....and avoidance is achieved.
this is simplified now a days in a big ship by the nav system that calculates course and speed and forewarns the captain of possible depth change.
so .... I really dont get it.

In the case of the cutter raming the speed boat......the cutter was defending the area as a person was in the water.....however...in that case i think the cutter captain was charged, as he was clearly at fault.....
the small vessel captain....while not paying attention, had his vision in his avoidance area, (even though he was looking at the chicks on the other boat)

 

[oops!]

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lol......oops.......let me fix something......the above post by pj was not his....it was mine.....

 

[oops!]

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QC I get your point. With the modern equipment and the amount of personal on board how did it happen. Your right it should have never happened. I gees one thing to keep in mind is you are never as safe as you think no matter how much companies/people tell you.


The one that happened up here was due to the two people who were running the ship had had an affair and were braking up. Due to this they left there posts and hit a under water hazard.

PJ.... I'm still so mad about The Queen of the North.... I could just spit.
I mean....B.C. ferries ram the docks all the time. Hard landings...are due to different weight loads each sailing. We all have felt that hard "bump" as they dock......this is to be expected with the amount of weight on each boat.
Dock rams????.... Mechanical failure of the transmissions. Unfortunate, but its gonna happen.
Driving away from the dock while cars are still loading???....that is just stupid and a real screw up of communications. The super ferries introduced in the 90's eliminated this, as the captain now looks at the ramp before leaving.
But The Queen of the North going down due to a lovers spat???.....charges of manslaughter should have been laid.

But The Queen of the North is just like this one Posted by QC...

I really don't get it...
We know the waters.....We know the depth.....computers calculate course and speed. Alarms go off.
There are safe distances....and when we transgress the safe margins....there are warnings.

I really don't get it .......Kevin mentioned that if he had a garmin and a chart....he could have seen it happening.....'ell......if I had an apple cell phone I could have seen it coming well enough in advance to WALK to the pilot house and tell the captain....

I just dont get it....the time they were notified by computer alarm...the vessel could have turned...

But......In there defence.....at this time we dont have all the facts.

 

[angus63]

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"Because humans build and operate vessels and God controls the seas, there will forever be lifeboats and maritime lawyers."
- Angus63 in response to a similar question a Midshipman asked on Friday

 

[sasto]

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Another photo.....but the captain did say he headed to shallower waters.

I would think a course was charted out way ahead of time. I would also think she was on autopilot. And I would assume the auto pilot had an alarm if she ventured off course. I could go on and on as to why this should have never happened if all systems were working. I would like to believe the captain (or crew he is responsible for their actions) is not at fault.

Edit...I see oops! summed it up.

 

[oops!]

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BUT????

what are your thoughts sasto?

 

[sasto]

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BUT????

what are your thoughts sasto?

Geee. I guess I don't have any of my own. :facepalm:

I edited my post after finding yours before mine and mine before yours and then....nevermind....you caught me.

I figure from now on I will I will just copy and paste your replys, and save my time.

 

[QC]

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The ONLY reason I didn't say SmartPhone or iPhone or similar was because of depth contours.

I did read that the Captain headed to shallower water. That may also explain why they weren't dropping the lifeboats. And then she was listing so badly that they couldn't drop them. I really won't second guess the Captain's decisions after the accident. He was there, he had to make those decisions, that I get. Heck he may have been below and asleep when she struck the rocks. And, the auotpilot, plus the course all could've been bad, but isn't there someone (more than a couple) on watch? If it was my boat, and let's say she needs 2 miles for a course correction. I'd have the little circle rings on my GPS set out there and I'd sure as heck be watching that zone out just in front extra special closely In fact I think that's all I'd have people doing other than watching Radar for movable stuff. OK, maybe I'd have one guy watching oil pressure and water temp . . . :facepalm:

Annnnnnd, don't you think there is someone at Headquarters seeing all of their ships' locations in realtime? Heck, the flippin' partners we have in fuel stations can watch all of their stations operate, nationwide, from say their offices in Seal Beach. You can walk in there anytime and see pressures and cameras at any of them. Heck, they do it with trucks to see if the guy is stopping at his girlfriend's house. Jeez. Lot's of people had to be asleep if you ask me.

 

[oops!]

Re: How the heck . . .

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Geee. I guess I don't have any of my own. :facepalm:

I edited my post after finding yours before mine and mine before yours and then....nevermind....you caught me.

I figure from now on I will I will just copy and paste your replys, and save my time.

sorry sasto....that might be my bad.....I accidentaly deleted a full post by puddle jumper....im still getting used to the moderators console.. by the time i had fixed it...i had to move...re name...and I basically messed up the whole situation.

my deepest apology to Puddle jumper about zapping his post....he brought up a very similar circumstance that is very close to this one

 

[oops!]

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Annnnnnd, don't you think there is someone at Headquarters seeing all of their ships' locations in realtime? Heck, the flippin' partners we have in fuel stations can watch all of their stations operate, nationwide, from say their offices in Seal Beach. You can walk in there anytime and see pressures and cameras at any of them. Heck, they do it with trucks to see if the guy is stopping at his girlfriend's house. Jeez. Lot's of people had to be asleep if you ask me.

I cannot imagine all the steps of mistakes that caused this to happen

 

[rbh]

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Looked as if the 50m (150ft) rip is on the top side of the hull, "hopefully" they can do a patch and float it off at high tide.
We don't need more garbage in the ocean.

 

[tpenfield]

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We just came back from a Caribbean cruise. . . kind of freaky to see this thing happen. We did our life boat drill prior to leaving port. It seems though, that in a real emergency with not a lot of time, it would be a scramble to get to the station and then board the life boats.

Another thing that seems to me is that the ships are more top heavy than the ships of 30, 40, 50 years ago. It seems like they are much easier to capsize. I'm sure the nautical engineers have things figured out, but you have to wonder to what limits they are stretching things.

It seems like that the captain tried to get the boat to shallow waters. I imagine that it would have completely sunk in deeper water.

 

[LippCJ7]

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Does this make sense? did she lose ballast? she capsized on the opposite of the damage?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...p-sinking-coast-Italy-Titanic-like-scene.html

I piece of the rock is embedded in her hull too!