Cruise ship tragedy

I think that Jack has put things very well. There's a lot of misinformation out there and people are jumping to conclusions.

The owners are blaming the captain (he may, or may not, be at fault) because they are trying to restrict the financial damage to the company. The value of Costa shares have dropped by 100 million since the incident.

The captain has said that he stayed on board until everyone was off. We know that wasn't quite true because of the people subsequently rescued or bodies recovered, but with the panic that ensued there was no way that everything could be checked. So they will eventually release information on when he actually left the ship to see if he waited until it was thought that everyone was off. There is no doubt that the scheduled emergency drill (which may or may not have helped restrict the chaos) was set almost 24 hours too late. It should have been held within a few hours of sailing and not the next day, although the rules say 'within 24 hours'. At least the passengers would have an idea of where their muster stations were so that a better count could have been made and a better control of the situation and people could have occurred (I think they still would have panicked).

From what we have been told so far, it certainly appears that he sailed outside of the normal channel but this happens all the time. What needs to be seen is whether the path he took was shown on the charts as one to be avoided.

The running aground of the ship is what is the recommended procedure when a ship is holed as badly as this was.

Whether the captain was at fault is yet to be seen but it does seem to me that he should have called for the ship to be abandoned earlier than he did. This would have allowed more of the lifeboats to have been lowered before the list became too great. I think that there may eventually be a recommendation that some life rafts should be kept at emergency stations, as they used to be. These could have been launched even in the conditions that ensued. Of course, I'm not a captain or an expert on these things. I've only worked on them and travelled as a passenger on them.

Although the design of the modern cruise ship is nowhere near similar to the the ocean liners of the past they do take a lot of safety factors into account. I have some doubts as to the situation on some of the larger ones with about 8,000 passengers and crew. They are very tall and look top heavy but all the upper decks are very light (the superstructure is mainly aluminium) so their centre of gravity is still quite low - but I don't know what effect there may be if 5,000 passengers all rush to one side, on the upper decks, at the same time.

There is no doubt that the modern large cruise ships are not as stable in rough seas as the traditional passenger liners but this doesn't affect their seaworthyness - only their comfort. For those that may be interested, it's the design of the hull that makes that difference.

We will have to wait a long time to find out what really happened and who was at fault.

With the other disasters mentioned:- The Herald of Free Enterprise was, undisputably, a number of 'human errors' added to the lack of safety features. The Marchioness was the lack of navigation controls and rules. These had been pointed out a number of times over the years prior to the disaster. It was on record that this sort of incident was bound to happen at some time. If it wasn't for a number of coincidences and the quick thinking of one man (now living in Wales, Dai ) there would have been less people pulled out of the Thames alive.

 

Just in case anyone is interested:- Costa, of course, has insurance but it also has an excess on each insurance.

The excess on the insurance for the structure of the ship is $30 milion and for third party liability, $10 million.

 

Cabins have electronic locks. When the power goes the doors can always be opened from the inside. Therefore nobody need be trapped by the door not opening. Access from outside is more problematic.

As I said, nearly two weeks ago, the call to abandon ship came much too late. If they had done so at the right time the lifeboats would have been able to be lowered before that became impossible.