1912...2012... We Still Haven't Learned That Ships Are NOT Unsinkable!

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Costa Concordia, a cruise ship from a (now-formerly) reputable cruise line with 4000 passengers on board, ran aground last night off the Italian coast and partially capsized, luckily in shallow water that prevented it from sinking entirely. Three are confirmed dead and up to 70 are still missing.

There are reports that the ship suffered some kind of electrical failure before crashing. But there are also reports that no muster or lifeboat or emergency drills had been conducted since the cruise first began five days ago.

Ya know, I think we could accept the electrical failure issue - technology failures happen even in this day and age.

But the lack of emergency drills? That is criminal and heads need to roll. Sounds like almost exactly 100 years after Titanic went down, the maritime industry still buys into the myth that ships are too big, too technologically advanced to sink, and therefore no emergency planning is needed.

So far at least three people have paid for that myth with their lives this weekend. We can only hope that the 70 still unaccounted for merely weren't tracked in the chaos onshore.

Well, not exactly like the Titanic. As I recall, the Titanic didn't even have enough lifeboats for everyone on board.

Aggie wrote:

Well, not exactly like the Titanic. As I recall, the Titanic didn't even have enough lifeboats for everyone on board.

And only used most of those to a third of capacity (for fear of overloaded boats capsizing).

As I was saying to my father last night, if Costa Concordia's soon-to-be-ex-captain were in command of a naval vessel instead of a civilian cruise liner he would be facing court-martial for dereliction of duty.

The search for trapped people has been suspended, then resumed. The water is freezing, divers can't see a bloody thing, and the ship is slowly sliding away from the coast. I'd say the list of victims - 22 or 23 - is pretty much final. Now there's a danger of contamination as the tanks held 2,400 tons of fuel and are starting to leak.

It seems that the ultimate cause of the accident was that the captain wanted to "show respect" to some other members of the crew by passing close to their native island, and ordered the change of route. The rest is friday the 13th on a leap year - something just had to happen, hadn't it? Some of my colleagues worked on that ship or her sisters and said there are two diesel generators placed high where the funnel is, thus electrical power should not have failed. Maybe they were forgotten about.

All about these ships from their design and construction to the type of tourism they are designed for makes me holler, and I wish fervently for the whole lot of them to be turned into diver attractions, but not with people dying like rats in the process.

Emergency drill. I never had a fire drill in the 6 schools I attended over a period of 14 years. That's Italy for you, where a ton of hand-wringing is worth an ounce of prevention.
Also, emergency drills are useless since in a real emergency passengers lose their head anyway, so get them another drink and retrieve the tip.

Chris91 wrote:

As I was saying to my father last night, if Costa Concordia's soon-to-be-ex-captain were in command of a naval vessel instead of a civilian cruise liner he would be facing court-martial for dereliction of duty.

As it is, he (and the first officer, according to some reports) is looking at manslaughter charges and charges for abandoning his ship before the passengers. He probably would have had an easier go of it if he went down with the ship.

Quote :

It seems that the ultimate cause of the accident was that the captain wanted to "show respect" to some other members of the crew by passing close to their native island, and ordered the change of route.

"HEY, CAPN, think we can float closer to this rock we used to live on?"
"Sure thing"
*Crunch*
"Too close, Capn."

Quote :

All about these ships from their design and construction to the type of tourism they are designed for makes me holler, and I wish fervently for the whole lot of them to be turned into diver attractions, but not with people dying like rats in the process.

So dramatic.

I bet the rats got off the boat just fine.

I feel like media in America has got bored with the election nonsense and decided to hype this WAY out of proportion to fill time. "Sunk" is kind of a generous term, considering the thing isn't even underwater. And all of the people bitching about the sloppy evac are just whiners, the boat didn't sink and was 20 feet from the shore. I understand if people below deck were trapped by the water before it was understood what was going on, but people are complaining about inefficient lifeboat procedures within spitting distance of shore.

When I say spitting distance, I mean a distance so short that if you got on a boat in the first place, unable to swim that far, the world is better off without you.

Oh, and I think I heard the tail end of a news report saying there were reports that the captain was on shore for some reason BEFORE the accident happened. Not sure if accurate.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

I feel like media in America has got bored with the election nonsense and decided to hype this WAY out of proportion to fill time. Not sure if accurate.

Yes, because a cruise ship with over 4,000 people aboard running aground (which is the term every news story I've seen has used, not "sank") isn't worth more than thirty seconds on the International News segment.

Chris91 wrote:

As I was saying to my father last night, if Costa Concordia's soon-to-be-ex-captain were in command of a naval vessel instead of a civilian cruise liner he would be facing court-martial for dereliction of duty.

Sure, because only the military have courts in the world where you live.
Commander Calamai, who was in charge of the TN Andrea Doria, behaved in an exemplar way throughout the sinking and yet he never had command of another vessel after the shipwreck. This guy will be screwed so badly it would have been better for him to be among the MPDs.
There are four different enquiries that await Mr. Schettino for gross negligence manslaughter: internal (Carnival Lines), maritime, criminal and civilian. Already according to the Italian maritime code, he is liable to get 3 to 12 years simply for not being the last one to abandon ship, and that is without taking loss of life into account.
As per the "soon-to-be-ex" part, he ceased being in command the second he bodily left the ship and he may have been officially relieved by the on-shore authorities; at a point he was on the phone with a Coast Guard officer who got fed up with his blatherings and said, "I'm in charge now. You declared abandon ship. I order you to climb the ratline, go aboard and coordinate the evacuation."


I'm going to file this as just another of your inconsequential posts following the formula "Person X ought to be Y'ed for having done Z", and going to sleep.

The Unoriginal wrote:

The rest is friday the 13th on a leap year

Well sure, it's not as though bad things stop happening just because the day has a certain combination of number and name assigned to it.

The Unoriginal wrote:

Chris91 wrote:

As I was saying to my father last night, if Costa Concordia's soon-to-be-ex-captain were in command of a naval vessel instead of a civilian cruise liner he would be facing court-martial for dereliction of duty.

Sure, because only the military have courts in the world where you live.

Gee, condescending much?

I was simply making the "court martial" observation to emphasize the gravity of the Costa Concordia captain's offenses; I'm perfectly aware that this case will be handled by a civilian judiciary. When I need a civics lesson from you I'll ask for it. In the meantime, you arrogant self-righteous jackass, kindly get the hell off my back.

Chris91 wrote:

The Unoriginal wrote:

Chris91 wrote:

As I was saying to my father last night, if Costa Concordia's soon-to-be-ex-captain were in command of a naval vessel instead of a civilian cruise liner he would be facing court-martial for dereliction of duty.

Sure, because only the military have courts in the world where you live.

Gee, condescending much?

I was simply making the "court martial" observation to emphasize the gravity of the Costa Concordia captain's offenses; I'm perfectly aware that this case will be handled by a civilian judiciary. When I need a civics lesson from you I'll ask for it. In the meantime, you arrogant self-righteous jackass, kindly get the hell off my back.

THAT'S RIGHT CHRIS YOU TELL HER

GET ALL FIRED UP NOW AND BLOW EVERYTHING OUT OF PROPORTION

OBNOXIOUS FUCKING POPCORN SMILIE GOES HERE

Chris91 wrote:

The Unoriginal wrote:

Chris91 wrote:

As I was saying to my father last night, if Costa Concordia's soon-to-be-ex-captain were in command of a naval vessel instead of a civilian cruise liner he would be facing court-martial for dereliction of duty.

Sure, because only the military have courts in the world where you live.

Gee, condescending much?

I was simply making the "court martial" observation to emphasize the gravity of the Costa Concordia captain's offenses; I'm perfectly aware that this case will be handled by a civilian judiciary.

Martial court is not because you screwed up big time, it's because you screwed up in uniform.
So what exactly were you trying to convey with your original statement? I read it as, "If this guy was in the Navy, he'd be tried; since he's not, he won't." That was at lest controversial, if incorrect.
Now you say that you really meant, "If this guy was in the Navy, he'd be tried by a military court; since he's not... he'll be tried by a civilian court." You know, if that was all I had to offer in a conversation, I wouldn't bother hitting the "Submit" button. In fact, I usually don't. It's not like I get paid for each post.

Also, Cyberwulf, smelled the blood in the water, have you? I'm not taking this any further, not with you rooting from the stands.

I get the none-too-subtle hint of sour grapes from 'Wulf's comment.

To answer her unspoken question ("Why doesn't he get dogpiled for overreacting like I do?"), it's because that isn't Chris91's M.O. What he after that (coming in late and dropping a pile of Captain Obvious comments) is.

Freezer wrote:

I get the none-too-subtle hint of sour grapes from 'Wulf's comment.

To answer her unspoken question ("Why doesn't he get dogpiled for overreacting like I do?"), it's because that isn't Chris91's M.O. What he after that (coming in late and dropping a pile of Captain Obvious comments) is.

oh freezer you and your delusions

I was making fun of Chris's tendency to overreact in the first place, dumbass. You know, to criticism, mild insults, anyone disagreeing with him...?

ps love the assumption that I give a fuck whether I get "dogpiled for overreacting" (lol) or not

The Unoriginal wrote:

You know, if that was all I had to offer in a conversation, I wouldn't bother hitting the "Submit" button. In fact, I usually don't. It's not like I get paid for each post.

Someone should tattoo this on whatever arm Chris uses to masturbate or something, because this is seriously his biggest problem, right here: being a fucking dull fucker.

Chris, it is perfectly okay to lurk and not say anything. That's what I do 99% of the time, and as far as I'm aware, I'm not the forum lolcow. You don't need to add lame-ass, uninteresting to every topic. It's annoying and pretty much just shitposting.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Freezer wrote:

I get the none-too-subtle hint of sour grapes from 'Wulf's comment.

To answer her unspoken question ("Why doesn't he get dogpiled for overreacting like I do?"), it's because that isn't Chris91's M.O. What he after that (coming in late and dropping a pile of Captain Obvious comments) is.

oh freezer you and your delusions

I was making fun of Chris's tendency to overreact in the first place, dumbass. You know, to criticism, mild insults, anyone disagreeing with him...?

ps love the assumption that I give a fuck whether I get "dogpiled for overreacting" (lol) or not

Yeah, with Wulf it goes mostly like:
Wulf: *Some well thought out argument in defense of a lunatic position or in favor of lunatic actions*
Mikey: *An explanation, with limited coherency, as to why that's retarded, followed by insults*
[Seven pages of two way snarling go here]

With Chrissy, it's more like:
Chris: *Completely pointless, irrelevant shit that adds nothing to any thread, topic, or discussion EVER*
Mikey (Or anyone else, really):
Chris: *Absolutely flipping his shit for two days*

Chris91 wrote:

The Unoriginal wrote:

Chris91 wrote:

As I was saying to my father last night, if Costa Concordia's soon-to-be-ex-captain were in command of a naval vessel instead of a civilian cruise liner he would be facing court-martial for dereliction of duty.

Sure, because only the military have courts in the world where you live.

Gee, condescending much?

I was simply making the "court martial" observation to emphasize the gravity of the Costa Concordia captain's offenses; I'm perfectly aware that this case will be handled by a civilian judiciary. When I need a civics lesson from you I'll ask for it. In the meantime, you arrogant self-righteous jackass, kindly get the hell off my back.

The only reason I am not taking the bait and giving you a good thumping yet again is because someone extracted a promise from me that I would let the next one go. Oh, but I so want to. The dodo, he taunts me.

Lapin wrote:

The dodo, he taunts me.

Don't insult extinct flightless birds. FUCKING DODOS NEVER DID SHIT TO YOU, FUNNY BUNNY!

xerrofoot wrote:

Lapin wrote:

The dodo, he taunts me.

Don't insult extinct flightless birds. FUCKING DODOS NEVER DID SHIT TO YOU, FUNNY BUNNY!

Well, hello there. My, what a red nose you have.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Yeah, with Wulf it goes mostly like:
Wulf: *Some well thought out argument in defense of a lunatic position or in favor of lunatic actions*
Mikey: *An explanation, with limited coherency, as to why that's retarded, followed by insults*
[Seven pages of two way snarling go here]

I am normally averse to troping all willy-nilly, but, well, since I have yet to read an article dealing with this not quite humongous boating disaster that somehow managed to not bring up the Titanic, I feel I can make comparisons too: aw, look, they really do love each other.

The Unoriginal wrote:

All about these ships from their design and construction to the type of tourism they are designed for makes me holler, and I wish fervently for the whole lot of them to be turned into diver attractions, but not with people dying like rats in the process.

Granted, I haven't looked into this particular incident in any kind of depth, but as I understand it, the design of the ship was quite good. The problem was the captain making a boneheaded decision that caused such catastrophic damage that virtually no amount of built-in fail-safes could compensate for, and then compounding his error by not immediately following procedure and ordering an evacuation.

Lapinina wrote:

The dodo, he taunts me.

I'm pretty sure this is breaking your promise, you boob.

Jay/Cris wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Yeah, with Wulf it goes mostly like:
Wulf: *Some well thought out argument in defense of a lunatic position or in favor of lunatic actions*
Mikey: *An explanation, with limited coherency, as to why that's retarded, followed by insults*
[Seven pages of two way snarling go here]

I am normally averse to troping all willy-nilly, but, well, since I have yet to read an article dealing with this not quite humongous boating disaster that somehow managed to not bring up the Titanic, I feel I can make comparisons too: aw, look, they really do love each other.

And now I have seven TV Trope tabs open. I hope you die.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Lapinina wrote:

The dodo, he taunts me.

I'm pretty sure this is breaking your promise, you boob.

No, no, you are a boob. I have boobs.

You've been off your game lately, darling. Having a rough...golfing...season? I don't know what they call it. Not like it's a real sport anyway.

^
It's not like golf season is January anyway. Though it is unusually warm.