Did they really try to sail that massive ship through that teeny-weeny gap between the islands? Jeez, they must have been either bored stupid or drunk on rum.
Wasn't there something on TV quite recently, in which someone found a rock much closer to the surface in Scottish waters than the charts for the area showed? By the way, I'm not refering to the nuclear sub which ran aground in the Firth of Clyde.
I'm not sure if this is the one I remember, or a similar event:
b). attempt to pull her upright after repairing the hole on the port side so that the even bigger hole on the starboard side can be patched, tow her out far enough and deep enough to put her in a floating dry dock and take her for repair. Insurance underwriters are looking at a $300million bill so they will definitely be looking for a repair option.
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Four miles is about half way between the island and the west coast of Italy - given we take the harbor island as mainland.
The gap they were in was seventy meters across.
They maneuvered to beach the vessel, but we're not sure from where. Can't have been far.
"the waters were navigable" [Sic]
What waters? The ones that they should have been in four miles away, or the tiny gap. That channel is deep for some of the way and possibly usable, providing you fold in your wing mirrors. Can't have been their intention to be there, surely?
I recon three possibilities.
Systems failed them, and no one qualified enough to recognize and take action.
A very unskilled person saw land on both sides, and took the gap as being the main channel, only realizing the scale when it was too late.
Someone thought it a good idea to do some sightseeing, and plonked a finger on some of the depth readings and said, yep, that'll give us a spare metre.
Oh well, that's it then, signed, sealed and delivered. I mean why waste money on enquiries and so on when there are experts like this around to pontificate?
Might as well close the thread. We have the answer.
Thanks for the link. It sounds like it was absolutely bloody terrifying, similar to stories from the Andrea Doria sinking wrt to disorganized crew and inaccessible lifeboats. That was fifty years ago, shouldn't there be some improvement with all the new technology that's around? Even jetskis come with gps and depth sounders these days.
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned ...................... A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company
"For me, the worst part of the whole ordeal" was when a lifeboat crew member told those boarding that it was "women and children first," said passenger Benji Smith of Boston.
Malcolm Latarche, editor of IHS Fairplay Solutions, the global shipping magazine, said he believed that the most likely explanation began with a catastrophic loss of power on board the 114,500-ton ship, which led to a series of disastrous consequences.
I've been following this, since the event happened. I saw this ship, in port, when I was on a cruise in Oct. The name stuck with me. To read these events is disturbing.
With every article I have read, there seems to be a common statement that is repeated. The ship was miles off course. There was no mayday. Why would any captain and crew not proceed with SOP for emergency procedure? My hunch is they were off course and were already in panic mode to cover their asses.
When you look at the map, the fact that it was at night, just hours after the cruise began, it doesn't make sense they would go through this narrow, rocky area, when they didn't have to. They weren't stopping any where near. It's night time, no need for a scenic route. I tend to believe what others here and the news have already mentioned. This was a navigational c0ck-up. I tend to believe as well, they were off course.
If it remains with only 3 dead and the others were found elsewhere on the island, that captain would be one lucky SOB.
EDIT***Pigboat, I've read similar theories. My question: If there was a major power event, no witnesses talk about outages until after the ship hit ground. I guess the question is if the possible prior outages only effected the navigation and bridge.I hope there is a technical explanation that exonerates the captain/bridge crew.
That Turkish AIS reconstruction is interesting: I wonder where he got his data from.
I figgered I might as well take a look myself at what the free sites are reporting.
First, from the pictures, the ship ended up right off the rocks due North of Giglio Porto. The ship is facing south (looking at the port)
Shipfinder reports the Costa Concordia's last AIS position as about 1/3 a nautical mile NE of that position. It also shows several other vessels in the area, and reports their position precisely (that is, the AIS location lines up with berths in port, no vessels are on land, and so on). The last reported position is 031651 on 140111, that is, five and a half hours after hitting something.
Marine Traffic gives the position updates of the Costa Concordia. At 203700, it was about 3 km due East of Porta del Tamburo travelling at 15.3 knots and had begun a turn to starboard (after holding steady for the previous readings at 278-276 degrees, the heading went to 285, but the track is only slightly shifted). At 205300, the ship has already hit, and is slowing, while turning to starboard.
so what does that tell us? First, I'd like to see where Gemi Trafik got his AIS data from. He's got the Costa Concordia's track about 1.5 due East of Porta del Tamburo. Second, the "threading the needle" hypothesis sounds sexy, but it's just so phenomenally stupid. Just as stupid, but more likely is probably what GT's theory is (in Turkish): They were steaming at the island, and about 2 nmi out, noticed that they were heading straight for the island. So they started a turn to starboard and didn't quite make it.
Electrical failures and all that are cute, but they were on course to hit an island and they hit an island. Any tearing or explosive sounds the passengers may have heard, or announcements of electrical failures, were likely due to hitting an island.
Not much has changed - Titanic was supposed to be able to deal with 2 blown compartments, and so are today's cruise ships. Damage beyond that = a trip to the bottom.
I thought it was a PPRuNe for ships or something.
