Nautical Disaster

Wow I can’t believe this:

Emergency teams in Italy are racing to rescue those missing after a cruise ship ran aground off the country’s west coast with about 4,000 people on board.

Coast guard vessels are combing the waters around the Costa Concordia, which is lying on its side. Divers are searching its submerged decks.

There were scenes of panic as it began listing on Friday. Most people reached land by lifeboats but some swam ashore.

Three people are confirmed dead. About 70 are said to be unaccounted for.

Wow in today’s day of technology and safety, how the fuck does this happen to a pleasure craft as advanced as a Cruise Ship???

I hope most of those 70 are fine. Amazing its such a low number.

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0 Responses to Nautical Disaster

  1. LMB says:

    Criminal incompetence? Booze/drugs? It’ll come out, one way or another.

  2. Cargosquid says:

    Speaking as a retired Navy Quartermaster….

    there is NO excuse for this negligence. The damn ship is within swimming distance of exposed rocks, according to press pics.

    Every passenger or family of passengers should sue and put the entire line out of business.

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Also I wonder that close to shore if the ship was under the control of the Captain or the Harbor Pilot.

      If its the Pilot this is a total act of incompetency….as opposed to regular incompetency.

  3. Borepatch says:

    Six words: failure to maintain a proper lookout.

    And it’s very bad news that 70 are unaccounted for. In a disaster of this magnitude (capsizing) anyone not accounted for in short order very well may be dead.

  4. Kay.Ess. says:

    Wasn’t everyone surprised when the Titanic sank too?

    • Will Brown says:

      Bit of a difference here Kay.Ess; Titanic was sailing in open waters and collided with an uncharted object floating in the same patch of ocean surface. This cruise liner collided with the edge of Italy which, whatever else can be said of it, has been known to be in precisely that same location for a very long time now.

      Edward Smith takes a reputational hit for going for the speed prize the way he did, but this ship’s captain (the entire bridge watch actually) has no excuse.

      • Weerd Beard says:

        Also the Titanic had no radar and no sonar on-board, so the chunk of Ice it hit was not only uncharted, but totally invisable until it came into sight of the lookouts, and a turquoises chunk of ice in a murky night can sneak up on your amazingly fast…especially when the captain was making some time.

        Meanwhile the peice of bottom this boat collided with was visable to sonar, and was an all the charts and sounding tables made in the last 1,000 years given the rocky nature of the coast in the picture.

        So the difference is both figurative and literally night-and-day.

  5. Kay.Ess. says:

    Yeah, I guess I ought to do some sort of investigating before I start flapping my gums. Should have known better than to do that where a bunch of gunnies hang out, what with all the facts and logic floating around! Mea culpa, my friends.

  6. Nomen Nescio says:

    three days later and the BBC now has some early charts of the route it took. for whatever reason, the ship seems to have deliberately veered off course to approach the beach of an island much closer than normally — unless they were maneuvering to avoid some obstacle, captain’s error looks really likely.

    11 confirmed dead, apparently 24 still missing.

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